title: A massive hemorrhagic pleural effusion does not exclude the diagnosis of tuberculosis: a case report.
abstract: We report a case of an immunocompetent 18-year-old man with a massive hemorrhagic, exudative, lymphocytic pleural effusion. Blind transthoracic pleural biopsy showed granuloma formation, while the pleural fluid culture was positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, confirming the diagnosis of primary tuberculous pleuritis. A massive hemorrhagic pleural effusion is extremely rare in tuberculosis, but tuberculosis is a very protean disease and should always be included in the differential diagnosis of pleural effusions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pneumonology, Army General Hospital, Athens, Greece. mermigh@gmail.com
authors.forename: Charalampos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mermigkis
authors.forename: Antony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kopanakis
authors.forename: Kostas
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Psathakis
authors.forename: Napoleon
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Karagiannidis
authors.forename: Manolis
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kastanakis
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Patentalakis
authors.forename: Anastasia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Amfilochiou
authors.forename: Georgios
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Patentalakis
authors.forename: Vlassis
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Polychronopoulos