Summary Of Spontaneous Pneumothorax

The peer reviewed article, “Spontaneous Pneumothorax” by Laszlo Bense, states what specifically happens when a pneumothorax occurs, what causes them, and just a few ways to prevent them. First of all, a pneumothorax is the medical term for a collapsed lung, which is something I did not know before I read these articles. So the first thing this article talked about was how a collapsed lung happens. It basically describes it as air filling your pleural cavity because of a slight rupture or opening of one of your lungs. When air fills the cavity, the lung deflates like a balloon does over time but stops at a certain point because of the pressure inside the cavity, so the lung will never fully deflate. The next thing this article addresses is some
In the introduction it talks about how reexpansion pulmonary edema happens, which is when the lung rapidly expanse after it has been collapsed. It shocked me, but it said that the incident has a twenty percent mortality rate. In this particular study, they focused on one man who had this happen to him, and they did a study on him. They took many x-rays of his upper body to see his lungs in different stages of the process. The picture in the beginning and after the fifth day have some obvious differences, and the treatment worked on his collapsed lung. The case study explains that the exact causes of reexpansion pulmonary edema are not clearly identified, but they do know that more than just one thing causes it. They also talked about a mini case study they did with rabbits in the discussion part, and they found that the longer a lung has been collapsed, the more likely it is to develop reexpansion pulmonary Edema. To wrap it up in the conclusion, the case study I read restates that it is a rare complication that most people do not have to worry about. However, with that being said, it is not something to take lightly because of how dangerous it is if it does end up happening to
Just like the other two, this scientific journal starts off with the basic definition of what a pneumothorax, or collapsed lung, is. Next, this journal talked about something the other two did not, the fact that there is two types of collapsed lungs categories. There is primary, when it happens to someone who is healthy, and secondary, occurring in an unhealthy individual. They talk about smoking cigarettes in this article also, and how it can lead to both primary and secondary collapsed lungs. It states that secondary is most serious, and lists a few common ways that this comes about. They did this particular study in India, and in the results part of the study they explain that more men get collapsed lungs than women. This shocked me at first, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Collapsed lungs usually happen to older people around the age of fifty and it stated the fact that 86 percent of the people were current or ex-smokers. It also explained that collapsed lungs are significantly more common in taller people who are relatively thin. There are a couple graphs and pie charts in the results portion that show direct correlations with people who smoke and end up getting collapsed lungs. In the discussion it states that tall, young men are the most at risk group for a spontaneous collapsed lung.