Discriminating Tuberculous Pleural Effusion from Malignant Pleural Effusion Based on Routine Pleural Fluid Biomarkers, Using Mathematical Methods

The differential diagnosis of tuberculous pleural effusion (TPE) and malignant pleural effusion (MPE) is difficult because the biochemical profiles are similar. The present study aimed to differentiate TPE from MPE, using a decision tree and a weighted sparse representation-based classification (WSRC) method, based on the best combination of routine pleural effusion fluid biomarkers