The utility of daily therapeutic thoracentesis for the treatment of early empyema

Study objectives: To determine if therapeutic thoracentesis is as effective as early chest tube placement or no drainage procedure in the treatment of early empyema in rabbits. Design and interventions: An empyema, as evidenced by gross pleural pus and a decreased pleural fluid pH and glucose level, was induced in 49 rabbits. The rabbits were divided into three groups: 16 underwent daily therapeutic thoracentesis starting at 48 h, 14 underwent chest tube placement at 48 h, and 19 sen ed as controls. Results: The mortality rate in the therapeutic thoracentesis group (0/16) d id not differ significantly from that in the chest tube group (3/14) or tha t in the control group (6/19), At autopsy at 10 days, the gross empyema sco re in the therapeutic thoracentesis group (2.1 +/- 0.3) was significantly l ower (p < 0.05) than that in the chest tube group (2.8 +/- 0.3) or the cont rol group (3.5 +/- 0.2), The mean pleural peel score of 5.8 +/- 1.1 in the therapeutic thoracentesis group was significantly less (p < 0.05) than the score for the nonintervention control group (13.4 +/- 1.6), Conclusions: From this study, we conclude that therapeutic thoracentesis is at least as effective as early chest tube placement for the treatment of e arly emp,:ema using our rabbit model of empyema.