Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

    Background & Objective: Non-traumatic pneumothorax is mostly caused by the disruption of small and large bulla in lungs. Approximately 80% of the patients with spontaneous pneumothorax are thin, tall young men without the history of respiratory disorders. In patients over 40 years old there is a noticeable lung disease, mostly emphysema in smokers. Catamential pneumothorax is a rare phenomenon that commonly occurs during the first days of mensturation in women about 30 years old and is always in the right side of thorax. The treatment of spontaneous pneumothorax includes aspiration by simple needle, thoracostomy, thoracotomy or thoracoscopy procedures, resection of the zone and suture of the zone of leakage, and even in advanced cases pleurectomy procedure. But we must always choose the simplest treatment for spontaneous pneumothorax and avoid surgery except in specific cases. Nowadays in cases requiring surgery, the method of video assisted thoracoscopy(VATS) is used to treat cases of primary spontaneous pneumothorax. In this study we assessed the frequency of varied treatments of spontaneous pneumothorax in an educational medical center as well as the necessity of using modern endoscopic methods and tools.

Method: In this retrospective and observational cross-section study, a census method for gathering information was used. The obtained data was analyzed descriptively via EPI6 software.

Results: The subjects were 17 patients with a mean age of 33.9 years. 76% of spontaneous pneumothorax cases occurred at rest position and 42% of them were during activity. There was a collapse of more than 50% of lungs in 52.94% of patients. The most commonly used method of treatment was using chest tube in 70.56% of cases.

Conclusion: According to this study, 76% of spontaneous pneumothorax cases happened at rest which is similar to previous reports. Noting the frequency of the collapse of more than 50% of lungs, the commonest treatment was using chest tube which is in line with other studies.