Background: National guidelines recommend sampling unilateral pleural effusions to characterize the fluid as either transudative or exudative.  Currently, the only method to characterize pleural fluid is by collecting a sample through an invasive drainage procedure that has risks of complications and is uncomfortable for the patient.  Few noninvasive methods have been studied to differentiate exudative [...]

Background: The latest guidelines on parapneumonic effusion (PPE) management1 recommend immediate evaluation of PPE with ultrasound. Recognizing that bedside procedure services (BPSs) staffed with procedural hospitalists (proceduralists) are becoming the first point of ultrasound contact for many patients admitted with PPE our study sought to demonstrate that proceduralists can reliably agree with radiologists (viewed as [...]

Case Presentation: A 29 year old male with HIV/AIDS only intermittently taking antiretroviral therapy (ART), Pneumocystis jirovecii (PJP) pneumonia actively being treated with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) and prednisone, and cutaneous Kaposi sarcoma all diagnosed one month ago at an outside clinic presented to the hospital with worsening cough and shortness of breath. Initial vitals were notable [...]

Case Presentation: A 58-year-old man with a medical history of recurrent acute on chronic pancreatitis due to alcohol use disorder presented with a 3-day history of right-sided pleuritic chest pain and dyspnea. Chest X-ray revealed a new large right-sided pleural effusion.   Analysis of the aspirated serosanguinous exudative pleural fluid yielded a total amylase of 24,600 [...]

Case Presentation: A 41-year-old male with a past medical history of chronic alcoholic pancreatitis and right-sided pancreatic pseudocyst presented with shortness of breath and right-sided chest pain that began three days prior. Chest X-ray showed near-complete opacification of the right hemithorax. A diagnostic thoracentesis revealed an exudative pleural effusion with a pleural amylase level of [...]

Case Presentation:  A 41 year-old male with HIV/AIDS (diagnosed three years ago), cutaneous Kaposi Sarcoma (KS), started on combination antiretroviral treatment (cART) three months ago (CD4 270, Viral load (VL) >2000 at the time of initiation of cART), recent VL of 39, who presented with worsening shortness of breath, cough, abdominal pain, abdominal distention and [...]

Case Presentation: An elderly male with a pertinent past medical history of carpal tunnel syndrome, and chronic diarrhea, presents with complaints of progressively worsening anasarca and associated dyspnea. He has had multiple hospitalizations for dyspnea over the last six months, thought to be due to transudative pleural effusions. Outpatient work-up, including echocardiogram and subspecialty consultation [...]

Case Presentation: A 46-year-old male with history of hypertension and Covid-19 illness seven months ago presented to the ER complaining of left flank pain for the past six days.Pain was described as sharp, constant, initiating on his left flank and radiating to the upper abdomen. He denied dysuria, hematuria, fevers, sick contacts, or trauma. No [...]

Case Presentation: A 61-year-old African American male with history of recent atopic dermatitis treated with topical corticosteroids presented with 4 days of fevers, night sweats and worsening exertional dyspnea. On admission, he was febrile with decreased left lower lobe breath sounds. CT showed a moderate left-sided pleural effusion and left upper lobe cavitary lesion. The differential included both infectious and malignant etiology [...]

Cardiac involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is very common. Despite the relative frequency of pericarditis and pericardial effusions which occur in more than 50% of SLE patients, cardiac tamponade is rare and is seen in less than 3%. Additionally, there have been no consistent reliable predictors of tamponade development in such patients. We report [...]