The role of surgery in treating pleuropulmonary suppurative disease--review of 77 cases managed at Queens Hospital Center between 1986 and 1989.

Despite the generally salutary experience in recent years of managing suppurative pleuropulmonary disease, empyemas and lung abscesses have persisted and increased in incidence in hospitals such as Queens Hospital Center that serve large numbers of the socioeconomically disadvantaged. This study documents the etiology, clinical presentation, treatment, and treatment results of suppurative pleuropulmonary disease at Queens Hospital Center, which serves a large segment of the urban poor, many of whom are black. Results indicate that contributory or antecedent etiologic factors include a history of prior disease (specifically pneumonia, lung abscess, obstructive lung disease, pulmonary neoplasia, and tuberculosis); a predisposition to constitutional or immunologic deficiencies (specifically, alcoholism, anemia/malnutrition, drug abuse, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome AIDS]); conditions contributing to tracheobronchial aspiration (specifically, alcoholism and seizure disorders); and a miscellaneous group such as prior surgery, cardiovascular disease, and sepsis syndrome. The patients in this study were young with maximal incidence occurring in the third to fifth decades of life. Patients were predominantly male (75%) and black (66%). There were 18 deaths (23%), with sepsis being the cause in 10 (56%). Most surgical interventions were conservative, ie, bronchoscopies (48), thoracenteses (43), and tube thoracotomies (39). Thirty-one open thoracotomies were performed for drainage, decortication, or pulmonary resection. The surgical mortality was three cases or 5% of the patients who underwent surgery. The designated incidence of proven AIDS in this series (29%) was low, undoubtedly because many patients refused testing, and the multiple gram-positive and gram-negative infections that were seen did not conform to the Centers for Disease Control criteria for diagnosis and case reporting for AIDS.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)