Consideration of pulmonary thromboembolism in paediatric patients presenting to the emergency department with abdominal pain

Abstract

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a recognised complication of lower limb trauma in adult patients and classically presents with cardiopulmonary symptoms. However, the risk of VTE and its presenting signs and symptoms are less well documented in the paediatric population. We report the case of a child who presented to our emergency department with abdominal pain 2 weeks after lower limb fracture, who was subsequently found to have a pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE). This case report highlights the importance of having a high index of suspicion for VTE in the paediatric population if there are predisposing risk factors and to consider PTE as a differential cause of abdominal pain. To the authors’ knowledge, no case has been described in which a child presenting with abdominal pain was consequently found to have a pulmonary embolism.