Malignant pleural effusion in patients with ovarian cancer

Introduction. Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological cancer. The most common manifestation of thoracic metastasis is pleural effusion. Pleural effusion with positive cytology is regarded as stage IVa of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics classification, and the overall five-year survival in these patients is less than 20%. We analyzed the data of patients with ovarian cancer who were treated at the Oncology Institue of Vojvodina, in order to establish the incidence of malignant pleural effusions, laterality of pleural effusions, and clinical manifestations. Material and Methods. The study included 731 patients with ovarian cancer who were treated at the Oncology Institue of Vojvodina from January 2012 to May 2020. The obtained data were compared with data found in the literature in the same period. Results. The incidence of malignant pleural effusion in our study was 5.75%; right-sided pleural effusion was found in 57.15% of patients, 33.33% of patients had effusion on the left side, and 9.52% had bilateral effusions. Thus, unilateral effusion was found in 90.48% of cases, and bilateral in only 9.52%. The most common symptom was dyspnea, reported in 33 patients (78.6%). Conclusion. The incidence of malignant pleural effusion in our study was most similar to data found by Zamboni et al. published in 2015; the right side was the dominant side of pleural effusions. The most common symptoms were dyspnea, shortnes of breath and chest pain.