Abstract
EMPYEMA occurring days to weeks after pneumonectomy is usually diagnosed during the same hospitalization. A late-onset postpneumonectomy empyema may be very difficult to diagnose. In some cases, a new airfluid level appearing on the chest roentgenogram provides a lead to the diagnosis or an empyema necessitatis makes the diagnosis obvious.<sup>1</sup>In others, there may be no diagnostic clues. In such patients, a gallium 67 scan may detect empyema in the postpneumonectomy space. <h3>Report of a Case</h3> A 52-year-old man was admitted to the Wood (Wis) Veterans Administration Medical Center on Jan 17, 1978, with cough, shortness of breath, and chills of two weeks' duration. He also noted an elevated temperature of 40 °C orally on one occasion, blood-streaked sputum, and occasional left-sided chest pain on coughing. He had a right-sided pneumonectomy for a bronchial adenoma in 1971, without complications. In February 1976, he was hospitalized for ten days for
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