The Importance of Thoracentesis in Pneumonia

The patient had a thoracentesis that showed periolent appearing fluid. The cell count had 100,000 nucleated cells and 90% of those were PMNs. Gram-stienin cultures were sent and are currently pending. So like our last patient, this pleural fluid analysis again reveals an exodate. As Kristina mentioned, his PMN count that's elevated is suspicious for perinomonic effusions or ampaima. It kind of matches their pretest suspicion based on the patient's symptoms. Dave, how do you use pH and glucose to interpret pleural fluid studies?