Telemedicine-guided thoracentesis of tension pneumothorax in a term newborn

Ayman Abou Mehrem1,2, Ashley Blagdon1, Jaco Hoffman3

  • 1Department of Pediatrics, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.

We describe a case of a term female infant born in a rural community hospital and who developed a left-sided spontaneous tension pneumothorax shortly after birth. We used telemedicine to guide the family physician and healthcare team at the referring hospital to perform a life-saving thoracentesis using an intravenous cannula. The cannula was kept in place to drain the persistent pneumothorax during transportation to the pediatric intensive care unit at the tertiary hospital.

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