Diagnosis And Treatment Of Parasitic Pleural Effusion:2Cases

Parasitic pleural effusion is scarcely encountered. Since it has neither specific clinical manifestations nor distinguishing imaging findings, it can be easily misdiagnosed as bacterial or tubercular even malignant pleural effusion. Pulmonary echinococcosis and pulmonary sparganosis are two kinds of lung tapeworm diseases that can develop in the lung parenchyma and lead to complications necessitating a surgical treatment. The former is more common, but the latter is very rare. In this paper, we report two cases of parasitic pleural effusion which were initially misdiagnosed with thoracic empyema. According to their equivocal clinical manifestations, imaging findings, the laboratory results of pleural fluid tests and pleural biopsy, they were eventually diagnosed with pulmonary echinococcosis and pulmonary sparganosis respectively which have been cured with antiparasitic agents. By retrospecting the entire clinical course of these two cases we uncovered the factors which led to misdiagnosis and the neglected clue for the diagnosis of parasitosis. The limited clinical experiences of diagnosis and surgical treatment of lung parasitic disease from our group were shared in this report.