Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Approach to treat empyema following pulmonary infection, especially in the second stage, is disputed. Therefore, this research aimed to compare the effect of simple tube thoracostomy versus surgical debridement in complicated parapneumonic empyema management.
Methods: This prospective randomized trial was conducted in Thoracic Surgery Department of Imam Khomeini Hospital of Tabriz and Dr. Shariati Hospital of Isfahan cities, Iran from March 2003 to September 2015. 104 patients with stage II empyema, divided into two groups (52 patients in each group). Group 1 was treated with simple tube thoracostomy and group 2 with surgical debridement with thoracotomy or thoracoscopy and patients had at least 2 referral after discharge. Personal information, medical history and information of complications and recurrence were recorded in two forms. Finally, data analysis was done by SPSS software version 22 (IBM SPSS, Armonk, NY, USA) and methods of Chi-square test and independent sample t-test.
Results: The age-mean of patients under study was 48.17±11.13 years in group 1 and 46.21±13.58 years in group 2 and the most patients were middle-aged (between 40 to 50 years). The number of men in both groups was more than women. 44.23% of patients in group 1 and 38.46% of patients in group 2 had a history of smoking. Duration of hospitalization (P=0.005), a chest tube duration (P=0.004) and duration of treatment (P=0.005) in group 2 was significantly higher than group 1. The complications (P=0.172) and recurrence (P=0.324) in group 2 are non-significantly more than group 1. The complications of treatment, after a week in group 1, are non-significantly higher than group 2 (P=0.690), but complications of treatment after a month in both groups were equal (P=1).
Conclusion: Duration of hospitalization, chest tube insertion time and duration of treatment in simple chest tube drainage treatment is shorter than surgery treatment (thoracoscopy or thoracotomy) and simple chest tube drainage treatment is more effectiveness way to treat patients with complicated parapneumonic empyema in stage 2.

Background: Double lumen tube (DLT) is used in lung surgeries. Classically, the patient should undergo fiberoptic bronchoscopy (FOB) to confirm the location of the DLT and its proper function. However, the sensitivity of ultrasound and clinical methods in diagnosing the correct position of DLT has not yet been definitively determined. This study was designed to assess the accuracy of point-of-care ultrasound and auscultation versus Fiberoptic Bronchoscope in determining the position of the Double-Lumen Tube.
Methods: This cross-sectional study of diagnostic value measurement type was conducted on patients who were candidates for double lumen implantation. After induction of anesthesia, DLT with the appropriate size was implanted, and then the position of DLT was evaluated. In the first step, the lungs were examined by auscultation, then the ultrasound was performed, and two signs of lung pulse sign and lung sliding sign were examined as signs of normal lung and ventilated lung. FOB was performed by an anesthesiologist. At the end, by opening the chest after surgery, the surgeon's opinion about the quality of lung collapse was recorded.

Results: In our study, the correct placement of the tube was correct in 37 cases and wrong in 3 cases, which were checked and corrected by FOB. Vital signs of the patients were stable before and during the operation. There were no problems with anesthesia during the surgery. Diagnostic sensitivity of lung auscultation clinical examination was 64.9% and chest ultrasound was 91.9%. The sensitivity of ultrasound compared to auscultation was not significant (P=0.242), but there was a clinically significant difference in the positive predictive value of the two, so that the positive predictive value of lung auscultation was 88.9% and lung ultrasound was 91.9%. In terms of surgeon satisfaction level, 22 cases (59.5%) had excellent satisfaction and 15 cases (40.5%) had moderate satisfaction. The sensitivity of ultrasound was not significant in comparison with the surgeon's satisfaction. Conclusion: Ultrasound can be a good substitute for FOB. Although ultrasound cannot have all the functions of FOB, but having advantages such as lower cost, speed of operation, and non-invasiveness, makes it more practical than FOB.