Research Article Clinical Investigation of Benign Asbestos Pleural Effusion

Copyright © 2015 Nobukazu Fujimoto et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. There is no detailed information about benign asbestos pleural effusion (BAPE). The aim of the study was to clarify the clinical features of BAPE. The criteria of enrolled patients were as follows: (1) history of asbestos exposure; (2) presence of pleural effusion determined by chest X-ray, CT, and thoracentesis; and (3) the absence of other causes of effusion. Clinical information was retrospectively analysed and the radiological images were reviewed. There were 110 BAPE patients between 1991 and 2012. All were males and the median age at diagnosis was 74 years. The median duration of asbestos exposure and period of latency for diseas