Lucia Nandrážiová, Zuzana Belicová, Dalibor Murgaš, René Gumulák, Ľubomíra Šebová, Katarína Maťašová
Over the past decades, significant progress in intensive care of newborns has been made. New stabilization philosophy on the delivery room, new ventilation support and ventilation strategy, use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), conventional and unconventional mechanical ventilation, exogenous surfactant administration and NO (nitric oxide) inhalation, improve the prognosis of premature infants with severe respiratory failure. However, in spite of improved care, intensive care-related complications still exist. Air leak syndromes are characterized by the release of free air from the tracheobronchial tree and the alveoli with its subsequent accumulation in areas where it is not normally found. The clinical manifestation of these syndromes is respiratory distress, while other symptoms depend on the location of extrapulmonary air. The most common are pneumothorax with pulmonary interstitial emphysema, pneumomediastinum and pneumopericardium. The authors present a rare case of subcutaneous emphysema in the area of neck of critically ill premature newborn.