Study design, study site and population
This is a 15-year monocenter retrospective study conducted in the
pediatric department of a community general hospital in Liège, Belgium.
Approximately 3000 children are hospitalized each year in our 85-bed
pediatric department for numerous medical or surgical reasons (with the
exclusion of organ transplantation and cardiac surgery).
We retrospectively searched for children (0-15-years-old) admitted to
our pediatric department between January 1st, 2002,
and June 30st, 2017 and coded in the hospital database with the
diagnosis of pleural effusion, pleurisy or empyema. We also listed all
the children for whom a chest drainage system (Pleur-Evac®) had been
delivered by the hospital pharmacy during the study period. The medical
charts of the selected children were reviewed, and only children with
pleural effusion in the context of an infectious respiratory disease (as
documented in the medical chart) were retained for analysis.