About this trial
Patients with malignant pleural disease often experience a significant symptom burden and a short life expectancy. The cornerstone of their treatment is relieving breathlessness by draining fluid from around the lungs and attempting to prevent further fluid build up. Inpatient chest drainage and talc pleurodesis remains the most successful method of stopping the fluid build up but this often requires an average hospital stay of four days. This can be an inappropriate length of time for this patient group. Our study would investigate whether this treatment could be provided on an outpatient, ambulatory basis and facilitate a greater quality of life.
The investigators would assess deliverability of the trial protocol and collect patient feedback to see if our patients consider it an acceptable and worthwhile intervention.
Eligibility criteria
This trial does not accept healthy volunteersQualifiers
Malignant pleural effusion
Life expectancy >30 days
WHO PS 1-2 (3 if due to dyspnoea)
Disqualifiers
Previous failed pleurodesis (on affected side)
Known non-expansile lung
Trial design
Single group
Treatments tested in this trial
ambulatory chest drain and talc pleurodesis
Procedure/Surgerya chest drain will be inserted, fluid drained and medical talc instilled on an ambulatory basis
Treatment groups
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
Success rate of delivery of the ambulatory pleruodesis protocol
Can the investigators successfully deliver the described ambulatory pleruodesis protocol within the 5 day time frame and what is the success rate of the protocol delivery.
Secondary outcomes
Patient satisfaction / Patient related outcome measurement
Questionnaire on breathlessness and chest pain at day 5 and semi-structured interview on the patient experience of the intervention
Patient satisfaction / Patient related outcome measurement
Questionnaire on breathlessness and chest pain at day 30 and semi-structured interview of the patient experience of the intervention
Sponsors and contacts
Click on the lead sponsor to view all of their trials.
David Rollins
Lead sponsor
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust
Sponsor institution