UNLABELLED The fibrinopurulent phase of pleural empyema has very often been treated with thoracotomy and decortications. MATERIAL AND METHODS We analyzed the lung function of 19 surgically treated patients in the last 3 years. The lung function was followed up at least 6 months after surgery. RESULTS Before surgery the expected mean forced vital capacity (FVC) was 4650 ml, the expected mean...

BACKGROUND Although the frequency of pneumonia has decreased over time, an increase in pleural empyema has been observed in different settings worldwide. This study assessed the epidemiology of community-acquired pediatric pleural empyema in the province of Quebec through validation of cases found in a hospitalization discharge database. METHODS We used the national administrative database of...

OBJECTIVE The appropriate timing, as well as the type of intervention, for the treatment of empyema in children is controversial. The advent of video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) has changed the way we treat these children. Therefore, we reviewed our experience with the early use of VATS in the treatment of empyema and formulated a treatment algorithm. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed ...

OBJECTIVE For patients with postoperative pleural empyema, open window thoracostomy (OWT) is often necessary to prevent sepsis. Vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) is a well-known therapeutic option in wound treatment. The efficacy and safety of intrathoracal VAC therapy, especially in patients with pleural empyema with bronchial stump insufficiency or remain lung, has not yet been investigated. ME...

BACKGROUND Although the incidence of serious morbidity with childhood pneumonia has decreased over time, empyema as a complication of community-acquired pneumonia continues to be an important clinical problem. We reviewed the epidemiology and clinical management of empyema at 8 pediatric hospitals in a period before the widespread implementation of universal infant heptavalent pneumococcal vacc...

From a retrospective scrutiny of 500 consecutive case records, which related to patients with empyema thoracis, over a 13-year period in a relatively closed community of one and a half million in the south-east region of Scotland (le Roux, 1965), it emerged that, in 50% of patients, empyema was related to non-specific pulmonary infection for which a persisting cause was not found, and that this...

BACKGROUND An increase in the incidence of thoracic empyema in children has been reported. The causative pathogen is often unknown as pleural fluid is frequently sterile at the time of culture. The role of unusual organisms is unclear. AIMS (1) To compare the detection of organisms in pleural fluid from children with empyema using a molecular technique (16S rDNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR...

This randomized, multicenter clinical trial enrolled 103 children hospitalized with septated parapneumonic empyema (PPE) who were randomized to receive thoracoscopy (n=53) or urokinase (n=50). The main outcome variable was the length of hospital stay after treatment. The secondary outcomes were total length of hospital stay, number of days with the chest drain, number of days with fever, and tr...

PROGRESSIVE post-operative gangrene is a rare but clinically typical phenomenon of secondary infection of a surgical wound. It is usually abdominal or thoracic (Sutton, 1956), and has occurred most often soon after the drainage of an appendix abscess or empyema (Illingworth and Dick, 1945). Post-operative gangrene has rarely been reported to affect the eyelids and the description of the followi...