COMMUNITY-ACQUIRED THORACIC EMPYEMA - DOES MICROBIOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION MATTER?

To describe the clinical characteristics, comorbidities and clinical outcome of hospitalized patients with the diagnosis of community acquired thoracic empyema in our hospital, with particular emphasis on the impact of identification of the causative agent.

We performed a retrospective review of the clinical files of hospitalized adult patients diagnosed with community acquired thoracic empyema between 2012 and 2016.

A total of 81 patients (64 men and 17 women), with a mean age of 54.6+-17.3 years, were included in this study. It was possible to identify the microbiological agent in 59.3% (n=48) of the patients. The median length of hospital stay was 29 days (P25=20 and P75=44.5) and a tendency to longer duration was seen in patients with a microbiological isolation (32 days vs 23 days; p=0.056). No significant difference was observed between patients with and without microbiological isolation, regarding the mortality.

In this group of patients a positive pleural fluid culture tends to be associated with longer lengths of hospital stay, which may lead to speculation that they were more advanced infectious processes at the time of diagnosis.