Has the incidence of empyema in Scottish children continued to increase beyond 2005?

Background The incidence of empyema increased dramatically in children during the 1990s and early 2000s. We investigated the relationship between changes in the incidence of childhood empyema in Scotland following the 2006 introduction of routine heptavalent conjugate pneumococcal vaccination (PCv-7) and the 2010 introduction of the 13-valent (PCV-13) vaccine. Methods This was a whole-population study of Scottish hospital admissions between 1981 and 2013 using ICD (International Classification of Diseases)-9 and ICD-10 diagnostic codes for empyema. The number of admissions for pneumonia and croup was also captured to give insight into secular trends in admissions with other related and unrelated respiratory presentations. Results There were 217 admissions with empyema between 1981 and 2005 (mean incidence 9 cases/million/year) and 323 between 2006 and 2013 (mean incidence 47 cases/million/year), p