Thoracic empyema: causes, diagnosis, and treatment

Thoracic empyema is a disease that has been recognized for centuries. The principles of management as stated by Hippocrates remain more or less unchanged. Diagnosis can be masked by the underlying cause, preemptive antibiotic treatment, or the now frequently associated debilitating diseases. With no other specific investigation, the main diagnostic test remains diagnostic thoracentesis. When an empyema is encountered, the objectives are to save life; eliminate the empyema, its complications, and chronicity; return pulmonary mechanics to normal; and reduce the duration of the hospital stay. The introduction of antibiotics has dramatically influenced the spectrum of the disease now encountered. If the original infection is adequately treated, empyema rarely occurs. Penicillin has removed the major cause of empyema, and further developments in antibiotics now mean that the majority of empyemas occur when patients are disabled by other disease processes or malnutrition, or where there remains a delay in medical attention. These patients are often less able to withstand the prolongation of the infective processes that is sometimes encountered with the staged approach to treatment. Developments in operative and postoperative care have meant that these patients can best be treated by more aggressive and definitive surgical management.