Open window thoracostomy for a chronic calcified pleural empyema in the setting of a closed chest trauma.

This case report is a chronic calcified pleural empyema in a patient who suffered a closed chest trauma 30 years ago. The first goal is to demonstrate how the closed chest trauma caused a bronchopleural fistula of the calcified pleural empyema, since the patient began to report continued purulent sputum after his trauma with weight loss and the appearance of an air-fluid level in the chest CT scan (no pleurocutaneous fistula in the clinical examination). The second goal is to reveal the rule and the interest of an open window thoracostomy in the management of chronic calcified pleural empyema, since a decortication remains difficult to perform in cases like this one.

[Surgery of tracheobronchial carcinoid tumours: Activity report].

Introduction: Our purpose is to evaluate our results of surgery for tracheobronchial carcinoid tumour as well as the long-term survival.

Methods: This is a retrospective and descriptive study performed in the department of thoracic surgery of CHU Hassan II (Marocco) over a period of 9 years. It concerns all patients with a tracheal or bronchial carcinoid tumour who underwent surgery.

Complicated cervico-thoracic cellulitis: the opinion of the thoracic surgeon.

Cervicothoracic cellulitis is a very serious, potentially life-threatening infection of the cervical and thoracic soft tissue. It is a genuine medical and surgical emergency with substantial mortality, and its surgical therapy has not yet been standardized. It spreads through the layers of the cervical fascia and can then disseminate to the mediastinum and the pleural cavities, requiring specific management that includes the thoracic surgeon.

Pneumonectomy for non-tumoral diseases: etiologies and follow-up in 38 cases.

Introduction: Pneumonectomy is a surgical procedure associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Chronic inflammatory pathologies increase these rates, depending on the degree of pleural symphysis and the underlying pulmonary pathology. The occurrence of a bronchopleural fistula after pneumonectomy remains of great concern to the thoracic surgeon, because it leads to empyema in the pneumonectomy cavity, which requires protracted and difficult management.