Pseudochylous Pleural Effusion in Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Case Study ROMATOÝD ARTRÝTTE PSÖDOÞÝLÖZ PLEVRAL EFFÜZYON: OLGU SUNUMU

Summary Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is heterogenous disorder with a spectrum of clinical severity ranging from mild arthritis to a crippling joint disease with involvement of internal organs. RA may be accompanied by pleural effusion. Pseudochylous or chyliform; or pr eviously called, cholesterol pleural effusion, has been known since the last century, but not many cases have been described in the world literature. The most common cause of this pleural reaction is pneumothorax treatment or tuberculous pleurisy, but it has also been described in RA. In the present report, we describe a case of RA complicated by thick and fibrotic pleura and associated with pseudochylous effusion. Biochemical and cytological findings of pleural effusion involving cholesterol crystals were highly specific in pointing towards the determined diagnosis rheumatoid pleurisy. The existence of cholesterol crystals in pleural effusion(PE) eliminates the need of pleural biopsy in our case in which rheumatoid arthritis pleural effusion (RPE) diagnosed by means of anamnesis and physical examination the diagnosis was confirmed.