Empyema thoracis: not time to put down the knife

Empyema thoracis: not time to put down the knife.

Empyema Thoracis

Epmyema thoracis is associated with high mortality ranging between 6% to 24%. The incidence of empyema is increasing in both children and adults; the cause of this surge is unknown. Most cases of empyema complicate community- or hospital-acquired pneumonia but a proportion results from iatrogenic causes or develops without pneumonia. Parapneumonic effusions (PPE) develop in about one half of th...

Therapy of the empyema thoracis. Why not thoracostoma?

Empyema toracis can be defined as a purulent pleural effusion. From 1998 to 2003 we treated 106 patients (87 men and 19 women), aged between 23 and 82 years, affected by localized empyema toracis. All of them received initially a chest tube and 73 of them (60 men and 13 women), in combination with selected antibiotics, had an uneventful recovery. Twenty three patients (17 men and 5 women) under...

Empyema thoracis: management outcome.

BACKGROUND Empyema thoracis results from postpneumonic effusion of bacterial origin or trauma. If untreated it may convert to fibro-purulent or an organising stage. METHODS This study was conducted at cardiothoracic unit of Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad from Jan 2008 to Aug 2009. Patients with diagnosis of empyema thoracic were studied. Their clinical features and investigations were reco...

Treatment of empyema thoracis.