Video-assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery in a 1-month-old Infant with Pleural Empyema

Pleural empyema is a frequent complication of bacterial pneumonia in childhood but is rare in neonates. Various modalities of treatment from intravenous antibiotics, chest tube drainage, intrapleural fibrinolytic agent installation, video-assisted thoracostomy to surgical decortication have been suggested to treat different stages of empyema in children, but management of progressive empyema in neonates is still at the stage of antimicrobial therapy and tube thoracostomy. Here, we report a 1-month-old infant with staphy-lococcal pneumonia complicated with multiloculated empyema who was successfully treated with video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) after 4 days of chest tube drainage and parenteral antibiotics. The patient's condition improved rapidly after the operation and the antimicrobial therapy was continued for 3 weeks. He was asymptomatic and thriving at follow-up 1 year later. Chest radiography at 1 month was free of any lesion. This case suggests that VATS can be a safe and effective treatment for neonatal empyema.