Introduction: The excessive accumulation of the pleural fluid in the pleural cavity results in pleural effusion, which is either exudative or transudative. The effective treatment of pleural effusion calls for the differential diagnosis of benign pleural effusion (BPE) and malignant pleural effusion (MPE). The present research objective was to measure the concentration of IL-27 and examine its diagnostic value in differentiating BPE from MPE in the pleural fluid of patients with exudative pleural effusion.
Materials and Methods: The samples for this research were obtained from 130 patients with exudative pleural effusion. The concentration of IL-27 in the pleural fluid was measured using the ELISA method. The statistical analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics tests and independent t test in SPSS 19. The significance level in all of the calculations was set to 0.05. The ROC curve analysis was carried out to determine the sensitivity of IL-27 in diagnosis benign pleural effusion.
Findings: Of the 130 patients included in this research, 88 were MPE cases and 42 were suffering BPE. The average age of the patients of the MPE and BPE groups was 57 and 59 years, respectively. The average IL-27 concentration in the BPE group (344.15 236.42) was significantly higher than the MPE group (203.05 76.03) (P=0.000). The area below the ROC curve was 0.803, which reflected the differential power of the IL-27 measurement in differentiating between BPE and MPE.
 Conclusion: Given the significant difference between the levels of IL-27 in the two study groups, the measurement of this biomarker in exudative pleural effusion cases can differentiate between BPE and MPE with good sensitivity and specificity.
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