Present-Day Management of Pleural Empyema in Infants and Adults

Abstract

DURING the past fifteen years there has been a dramatic decline in the incidence of empyema. This decrease is related to the early treatment of pneumonia with antibiotics, frequently outside hospitals and often without bacteriologic controls. However, a review of empyema and its treatment is not as outdated and impertinent as one might suppose. Cases of empyema still require hospital admission, although in reduced numbers. The patients tend to be chronically rather than acutely ill, some with complicated problems about whose treatment there is considerable diversity of opinion.In a four-year period ending July, 1943, there were 493 admissions to . . .