Value of osteopontin in differential diagnosis of pleural effusions

Abstract

Objective To investigate the value of osteopontin(OPN) in the differential diagnosis of pleural effusion.Methods A total of 85 patients with pleural effusion during October 2009 to January 2011 were recruited at the department of respiratory medicine of Hangzhou First Hospital.Pleural effusion was malignant in 39 cases and benign in 46 cases.The patients were divided into a malignant pleural effusion group,an infective pleural effusion group,and a transudation group.Then the infective was further divided into subgroup of tuberculosis pleural effusion group and parapneumonic effusion group.Results The concentration of OPN was significantly higher in the malignant pleural effusion group compared with the benign pleural effusion groups (P ＜70.01).When the cutoff value of OPN was set at 2 000 ng/L,the sensitivity specificity and accuracy for the diagnosis of malignant pleural effusion was 71.8％,95.7％ and 84.8％,respectively.Furthermore,the detection of OPN in combination with CEA showed better diagnostic sensitivity (97.43％),specificity (95.65％),and accuracy (96.47％).Conclusions The detection of OPN in pleural effusion is of some clinical significance in the differential diagnosis of malignant and benign pleural effusion. Key words: Osteopontin; Pleural effusion; Tumor markers; Lung cancer