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Introduction — High mortality and morbidity rate of empyema, despite effective antibiotic therapy, highlights the need to determine the optimal drainage method as a first-line surgical intervention. Controversies behind the treatment choice for empyema encouraged us to conduct this study aimed at demonstrating efficacy and differences of two techniques of clinical approach to empyema, chest tube and video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) with respect to outcomes. Material and Methods — We recruited 60 eligible patients with empyema and distributed them among two groups according to applied treatment strategies, either chest tube treatment method (Group I, 30 subjects) or VATS (Group II, 30 patients). Data were statistically analyzed by SPSS software, version 19. Then, the one-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test confirmed the normality of data distribution, and independent samples t-test was performed. Statistical significance was assumed at p |
