With a single diagnostic puncture 80 ml protein-rich fluid could be immediately evacuated. A pneumothorax could be evacuated immediately via the thin needle.
Dense (perhaps fibrinous) fluid remained on the surface of both pleurae.

The state after puncture has slightly improved; it remained unchanged in a x-ray-control eight weeks later.

Let’s repeat the complications:
before this 59-year-old man  died of metastatic rectal carcinoma, a wide pleural shadow has been confirmed. It was  the remnant of right-sited empyema 19 years earlier and had always been described as calcified fibrothorax  despite pronounced fever and coughing beginning 4 years prior to his death.
The correct diagnosis is: persistent effusion between the partially calcified pleural layers. A pleurobronchial fistula developed, resulting in replacement of the contents of the cavity by air, so that it now appears more radiolucent than the neighbouring lung.

Another complication: chronical empyema complicated with a pleuro-dermal  fistula.

In another case pleural empyema became reactivated, broke through the chest wall and caused a massive infiltration in the soft tissue and skin.