IntroductionMesothelioma is a heterogeneous disease that can be challenging to monitor and prognosticate. ASSESS-meso is a multicentre, prospective, longitudinal observational cohort study of patients with mesothelioma. The primary aim is to describe different clinical phenotypes and investigate predictive and prognostic factors, including biomarkers from blood and pleural fluid. The secondary aim is to provide a resource for future trials and substudies.Methods and analysisWe aim to recruit 700 patients with a histological, cytological or clinicopathological diagnosis of mesothelioma, at any anatomical site (pleural, peritoneal, pericardial, etc). Longitudinal data will be collected, including clinical information, radiological investigations, blood tests and patient-reported outcome measures for breathlessness, chest pain and sweats. Preplanned analyses will use Cox proportional hazards method to evaluate factors associated with survival, linear and logistic regression models to investigate associations with symptoms, and analysis of variance modelling to explore changes in symptoms over time.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval has been granted by the Research Ethics Committee South West—Central Bristol (17-SW-0019) and Health Research Authority (IRAS ID 220360). A study steering committee has been established and results will be published OpenAccess in peer-reviewed journals.Trial registration numberISRCTN: 61861764.

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IntroductionWe present findings from the International Collaborative Effusion database, an ERS clinical research collaboration. Non-specific pleuritis (NSP) is a broad term that describes chronic pleural inflammation. Various aetiologies lead to NSP, which poses a diagnostic challenge for clinicians. A significant proportion of patients with this finding eventually develop a malignant diagnosis.Methods12 sites across 9 countries contributed anonymised data on 187 patients. 175 records were suitable for analysis.ResultsThe commonest aetiology for NSP was recorded as Idiopathic (80/175, 44%). This was followed by pleural infection (15%), benign asbestos disease (12%), malignancy (6%) and cardiac failure (6%). The malignant diagnoses were predominantly mesothelioma (6/175, 3.4%) and lung adenocarcinoma (4/175, 2.3%). The median time to malignant diagnosis was 12.2 months (range 0.8–32). There was a signal towards greater asbestos exposure in the malignant NSP group compared to the benign group (0.63versus0.27, p=0.07). Recurrence of effusion requiring further therapeutic intervention, nor initial biopsy approach were associated with a false negative biopsy. A computed tomography finding of a mass lesion was the only imaging feature to demonstrate a significant association (0.18versus0.01, p=0.02), though sonographic pleural thickening also suggested an association (0.27versus0.09, p= 0.09).DiscussionThis is the first multi-centre study of NSP and its associated outcomes. Whilst some of our findings are reflected by the established body of literature, other findings have highlighted important areas for future research, not previously studied in NSP.

Involving pupils as empirical researchers within school settings assists in bringing their voices to the fore of school administration (Rudduck and Flutter, 2000) and educational theory. Pupil researchers are empowered in this process by developing their social and technical skills, by forming relationships with non-familial adults and by taking responsibility for the quality of schooling. When pupils are involved as interviewers, co-constructors of surveys and general 'fact fi nders', data are obtained within avenues that align with pupils' social worlds and cognitive functioning. This should increase the authenticity of data by gathering that which otherwise would be inaccessible to adults (Fielding and Bragg, 2003). Despite the potential for data to be improved in this manner, there are implicit problems in the process such as pupil bias and limited background knowledge (Pollard, 1985). Pupils' age-specifi c abilities in constructing and interpreting information may produce data that are simplistic compared with those gathered by an adult researcher. Furthermore, when pupils are involved as researchers on a 'tokenistic' level, and where the adult and pupil researcher hierarchy is heavily imbalanced, their capacities for participation become limited (Frost, 2007, p. 442), hindering any benefi ts that might be incurred. This article discusses these restrictions and benefi ts brought to light by the pupil researcher movement from a developmental psychological perspective, using the fi ndings from a pilot study, and suggests that they are inherent in pupil participation in general. To obtain these benefi ts in all types of study, it proposes the notion of educating pupils as 'active' participants who are engaged as informed, refl ective respondents, as opposed to being passive subjects of survey or interview investigation. Pupil researchers generation X A pilot study was conducted in May 2007 in a middle school in the east of England to evaluate the effectiveness of a range of methods in uncovering sensitive information on early adolescent psychology. The study informed