Intrapleural use of tissue plasminogen activator and DNase in pleural infection

Journal article

BACKGROUND: More than 30% of patients with pleural infection either die or require surgery. Drainage of infected fluid is key to successful treatment, but intrapleural fibrinolytic therapy did not improve outcomes in an earlier, large, randomized trial. METHODS: We conducted a blinded, 2-by-2 factorial trial in which 210 patients with pleural infection were randomly assigned to receive one of four study treatments for 3 days: double placebo, intrapleural tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) an...

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Authors: Rahman, N; Maskell, N; West, A; Teoh, R; Arnold, A

• Journal: New England Journal of Medicine
• Volume: 365
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 518-526
• Publication date: 2011-08-11
• DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1012740
• EISSN: 1533-4406
• ISSN: 0028-4793
• Language: English