Value of Chest Ultrasound in Pleural Effusion

Pleural ultrasound is complementary to other imaging techniques. It has many advantages: it is dynamic, non-irradiating, inexpensive, easy to implement. This is a prospective analytical study by the same operator grouping 63 cases who benefited from thoracic ultrasound in the context of a pleural disease. 71.9% men and 28.1% women, with an average age of 40.58 years. The main respiratory symptom in our series was dyspnea (87.5%), 75.0% of patients had chest pain, 15.6% had a history of neoplastic disease, 53.1% had an atypical radiograph whose ultrasound guidance allowed to locate pleural effusion with a single puncture attempt, regarding the location of the effusion; a predominance right 57,8%, 40.6% left and 1.6% of effusions were bilateral. Regarding the ultrasound aspect of effusions: 90.6% effusion was anechogenic, 37.5% effusion were cloistered, 6.3% effusion was echogenic, the risk of complications specially pneumothorax, hemopneumothorax and hemorrhage was null. The thoracic ultrasound is still fast, harmless and with low cost for detection, monitoring and identification of pleural diseases, reducing the risk of thoracocentesis.