Risk Factors Influencing Postoperative Pleural Empyema in Patients With Pleural Mesothelioma: A Single-Centre Analysis

Surgical treatment of pleural mesothelioma remains challenging and carries high morbidity, especially in patients who develop post operative empyema. This interesting article retrospectively studied 400 patients of whom 50 developed postoperative empyema. Extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) was found to be the only risk factor associated with development of empyema, with an odds ratio of 2.8 after controlling for confounding factors. Of note, survival was significantly worse in patients who developed empyema compared to those who did not.