Video-thoracoscopy and staged management of preoperative empyema in lung cancer.

The incidence of pleural empyema as a primary finding in lung cancer patients is low (0.1 to 0.3 %) and the management of those patients deemed operable consists of either infection control prior to resection, or thoracotomy and resection before infection control. We successfully resolved (in one patient) and alleviated (in a second patient) empyema-related systemic infection by video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS), and were thus able to resect their lung tumours 14 and 21 days later, respectively.