• Reference Number: HEY1574/2025
• Departments: Cardiac Surgery
• Last Updated: 30 April 2025

Fluid around the Lung

Introduction

This leaflet has been produced to give you general information about your diagnosis showing a pleural effusion or fluid around the lung.

What is a Pleural Effusion

A pleural effusion is a collection or pooling of fluid which collects outside of your lung between your lung and chest wall or rib cage.

What are the symptoms of a Pleural Effusion?

Shortness of breath is the symptom caused by the build-up of fluid around your lung. Initially you notice that on exertion you are shorter of breath this worsens as the fluid builds up limiting your ability to mobilise or to care for yourself.

What causes a Pleural Effusion?

Causes of a pleural effusion include cancer, inflammation, and trauma to the chest. Exposure to asbestos, cigarette smoke and having certain cancers can cause a pleural effusion to develop. When exposure to asbestos occurred often many years ago, this is a specific type of cancer called mesothelioma.

Who can help and support me?

Your Macmillan Lung Cancer Clinical Nurse Specialist or best placed to help and support you on tel: 01482 461090.

General Advice and Consent

Most of your questions should have been answered by this leaflet, but remember that this is only a starting point for discussion with the healthcare team.

Consent to treatment

Before any doctor, nurse or therapist examines or treats you, they must seek your consent or permission. In order to make a decision, you need to have information from health professionals about the treatment or investigation which is being offered to you. You should always ask them more questions if you do not understand or if you want more information.

The information you receive should be about your condition, the alternatives available to you, and whether it carries risks as well as the benefits. What is important is that your consent is genuine or valid. That means:

• you must be able to give your consent
• you must be given enough information to enable you to make a decision
• you must be acting under your own free will and not under the strong influence of another person

Information about you

We collect and use your information to provide you with care and treatment. As part of your care, information about you will be shared between members of a healthcare team, some of whom you may not meet. Your information may also be used to help train staff, to check the quality of our care, to manage and plan the health service, and to help with research. Wherever possible we use anonymous data.

We may pass on relevant information to other health organisations that provide you with care. All information is treated as strictly confidential and is not given to anyone who does not need it. If you have any concerns please ask your doctor, or the person caring for you.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018 we are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any information we hold about you. For further information visit the following page: Confidential Information about You.

If you or your carer needs information about your health and wellbeing and about your care and treatment in a different format, such as large print, braille or audio, due to disability, impairment or sensory loss, please advise a member of staff and this can be arranged.