[Our experience in the surgical treatment of pleural empyema by thoracopleuroplasty]

An analysis is presented, of the experience acquired in the Clinic for Thoracic Surgery from Bucharest in the surgical treatment of thoracal empyema by the Andrews type thoracopleuroplastia. The advantages of the surgical technique are stressed, after the modifications introduced by the authors, in contrast with other surgical techniques used, such as successive-type thoracoplastia, topographical thoracoplastia, plastron removal, etc. Careful preoperative preparation is recommended, and surgical indications are indicated and the major technical and tactical principles of the intervention are described. The Clinic's experience is based on 281 interventions. Of these 206 cases were of bacillary origin and 75 were non-bacillary. The etiologic forms of these empyemas are also analyzed. In such interventions the mortality was under 1%. Recidives were noted in approximately 1% of the cases and postoperative complications were solved without raising particular difficulties. These results recommend the thoracoplastia type intervention as the choice technique in a large number of thoracic empyemas.