• Kathleen A Noorbakhsh, Allison E Williams, Joseph J W Langham, Liwen Wu, Robert T Krafty, Andre D Furtado, Noel S Zuckerbraun, and Mioara D Manole.
• From the Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• Pediatr Emerg Care. 2021 Dec 1; 37 (12): e1051e1056e1051-e1056.

ObjectivesManagement of spontaneous pneumomediastinum in the pediatric population is highly variable. There are limited data on the use of diagnostic tests and the need for admission. Our objectives were to characterize the management of pediatric spontaneous pneumomediastinum, determine the diagnostic yield of advanced imaging, and describe the patients' outcomes.MethodsThis is a retrospective cohort study of all patients presenting to a single tertiary pediatric emergency department between January 2008 and February 2015 diagnosed with pneumomediastinum. Patients were identified using 2 complementary strategies: International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision billing codes and a keyword search of the hospital radiology database.ResultsWe identified 183 patients with spontaneous pneumomediastinum. The mean age was 12.8 ± 4.8 years. Diagnosis was established by chest radiograph (CXR) in 165 (90%) patients, chest computed tomography in 15 (8%), neck imaging in 2 (1%), and abdominal imaging in 1. After diagnosis, many patients underwent additional studies: repeat CXR (99, 54%), chest computed tomography (53, 29%), esophagram (45, 25%), and laryngoscopy (15, 8%). Seventy-eight percent of patients (n = 142) were admitted with a median length of stay of 27 hours (18.4-45.6 hours). Six patients returned to the emergency department within 96 hours for persistent chest pain; 2 were admitted, and 1 was found to have worsening pneumomediastinum on CXR. We performed a secondary analysis on 3 key subgroups: primary spontaneous pneumomediastinum (64, 35%), secondary gastrointestinal-associated pneumomediastinum (31, 17%), and secondary respiratory-associated pneumomediastinum (88, 48%). No patients in the study received an invasive intervention for pneumomediastinum. In all patients, further studies did not yield additional diagnostic information.ConclusionsOur data suggest that patients with spontaneous pneumomediastinum who are clinically well appearing can be managed conservatively with clinical observation, avoiding exposure to radiation and invasive procedures.Copyright © 2019 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

11 keywords...

hide…