Effectiveness of somatostatin in the conservative management of chylothorax

Chylothorax is a rare but potentially serious and well recognized cause of pleural effusion. Chylothorax commonly occurs following general thoracic and cardiac procedures. Additionally it sometimes develops secondary to non-surgical trauma, i.e. weight lifting. Here we report two additional cases with chylothorax. Somatostatin was added to conservative treatment protocol to increase effectiveness of therapy in both cases. Although the first case required surgical intervention, we avoided any surgical procedure in the second patient with conservative management combined with somatostatin.