[Intrathoracic washing with urokinase was effective for empyema with atelectasis]

A 60-year-old man had a medical examination because of fever in the emergency hospital and had a diagnosis of pneumonia and was treated, but he was admitted to our hospital 2 days later because there was not the improvement of his symptom. The chest computed tomography(CT)image showed multilocular pleural effusions and lower lobe atelectasis with the air bronchogram on the left side. We diagnosed the case as empyema and inserted a catheter, but drainage was very few and injected 60,000 urokinase units for 3 days from the next day. We removed a drain 2 days after the 3rd infusion, and the pleural thickening became mild, and atelectasis was gradually improved in the chest CT image, and the inflammatory reaction was reduced, too. The intrathoracic washing with urokinase was thought to be effective for empyema with atelectasis.