Abstract:
The chylothorax is a very rare disease caused by different factors. A general treatment procedure is not available. Food abstinence or MCT (medium chain triglycerides) diet is used in the primary conservative therapy or as an accompanying measure. Surgical interventional options are targeted towards pleurodesis, chemical or surgical, or the direct occlusion of the leakage in the thoracic duct.
Motivated by the beneficial treatment with somatostatin analogs in children, octreotide is also used as an off-label-use medication in adults in the clinical practice. Because of the low prevalence of the chylothorax there are only a few case-reports available which are documenting the side-effects of the octreotide therapy and mainly positive results.
This retrospective cohort study evaluates the result of the treatment of all patients suffering from chylothorax between 2000 and 2010 at the Department of Thoracic Surgery at the Clinic Schillerhöhe in Germany.
The purpose of this study is to verify the effectiveness of the octreotide therapy in adults with a primary or secondary chylothorax. Furthermore it aims to identify potential side-effects, also known from pediatric treatment and other already approved applications.
From all the available 35 chylothorax case-reports, 25 were included into this study. In 11 cases octreotide was used in the therapy of the chylothorax OCT(+), while in the other 14 cases octreotide was not used as medication OCT(-).
As a result of this study, using octreotide in the treatment of the chylothorax in adults did not show any significant benefits to the course of the disease.
In case of the secondary chylothorax the result shows that the octreotide medication leads to a by trend increased thoracic chylous drainage and consecutively to a lengthen duration of the thoracic drainage therapy as well as to a significant lengthening in the duration of the diet therapy.
The number of days patients stay in hospital, as a direct indicator for the effectiveness of the therapy, was increased by trend with the secondary chylothorax in the OCT(+) group.
The treatment with octreotide in adults did not lead to the side-effects which are known from pediatric usage.
One patient died under octreotide therapy on a fulminant multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. However, a connection to the octreotide therapy could not be proved.
It is worth to say that, to our knowledge, this study is currently the most comprehensive study available that deals with the analysis of the effectiveness and the side-effects of the octreotide therapy in adults with primary or secondary chylothorax.
The indication for an octreotide therapy in adult chylothorax patients should be determined critically, since this study cannot confirm any benefits to the course of the disease.