What's Your Diagnosis?

To help clinicians better understand some of the medical situations they may encounter and how to diagnose them, Healio Family Medicine begins an occasional series that provides diagnostic and treatment tips on a variety of conditions and maladies.

This edition focuses on some conditions neonatal children may experience that include swelling around the eye among their symptoms.

A 5-day-old girl presents with mild swelling, redness in left eye

In this scenario, a child goes to the ED 6 hours after a yellowish discharge from her left eye was observed. Her parents also noted mild lid swelling and erythema a bit beyond a birthmark the child had. There was no fever or change in her activity or appetite, and no other symptoms, such as vomiting, diarrhea, cough, congestion rash or irritability. Read more

Progressive inflammation of left medial periorbital structures in 3-week-old afebrile neonate

This scenario involves a child presenting with a red and swollen left eye. His history is that of a 34-week premature, uncomplicated vaginal delivery with Apgar scores of 8 and 9, and he remained in the NICU for 1 week due to prematurity. The only NICU complication was physiologic jaundice, which was treated with phototherapy. Read more

A 23-month-old girl with a red left eye

In this scenario, a child began to experience mild swelling of the left eye lids and erythema of the left eye with a scant, clear discharge several days ago and was admitted for evaluation and treatment of a red left eye. The swelling seemed worse in the morning on awakening, and has persisted. There is no significant pain or itching associated with the problem, and she has been afebrile. Read more