Introduction:

Parapneumonic pleural effusion is the most common pleural disease in childhood; 40-60 % of cases occur as a complication of community-acquired pneumonia. Given the onset of viscous pleural fluid, with fibrin or septums, intra-pleural fibrinolysis provides benefits to solve this serious condition.

Objective:

Describe the clinical and imaging evolution of three seriously ill children with complex complicated parapneumonic pleural effusion and empyema.

Case presentation:

Patients admitted to the Intensive Therapy Unit of "Dr. Eduardo Agramonte Piña" Provincial Pediatric Hospital with the diagnosis of pneumonia acquired in the community worsen with complex complicated parapneumonic pleural effusion, and treated in the intrapleural way with recombinant streptokinase. The first patient showed growth of Pseudomona in the culture of pleural fluid, a pathogen which is not common in acute respiratory infections from the community. The second case was complicated with septic shock; and the third patient had a chest ultrasound that showed multi-sited pleural effusion, with large bags and thick septums. All three cases evolved satisfactorily, without needing surgical treatment, or having adverse reactions attributable to fibrinolytic ones.

Conclusions:

Intrapleural administration of recombinant streptokinase in seriously ill children with complex complicated parapneumonic pleural effusion and empyema is an effective and safe method in the evacuation of pleural septic focus, which favors infection control, without complications. The cases presented had satisfactory evolution and none of them occurred adversely related to the administration of intrapleural recombinant streptokinase.

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