Recurrent Spontaneous Pneumothorax in a 47-Year-Old Woman

Timothy M. Guenther, Guenther TM, Joshua D. Gustafson, Pribyl SM, Shea M Pribyl, Curtis J. Wozniak, Wozniak CJ
Military medicine · 2020 · vol. 185(9-10) , pp. e1833–e1835 · doi:10.1093/milmed/usz468 · PMID:32687200 · W3045248654
Case report OA: hybrid CC0
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This case report details a 47-year-old woman who underwent video assisted thorascopic surgery for recurrent pneumothorax, revealing catamenial pneumothorax caused by endometriosis nodules on the lung and diaphragm.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Pneumothorax is a condition where air exists in the chest cavity, outside the lung. The causes of pneumothorax are numerous and determining the etiology can aid in treatment and prevent recurrence. We describe a 47-year-old female patient with past medical history of endometriosis who presented to the emergency room with recurrent right sided pneumothorax, its onset correlating with onset of menses. She underwent video assisted thorascopic surgery for a suspected catamenial pneumothorax whereby nodular "chocolate" appearing areas were noted on the middle lobe and multiple similar appearing lesions and fenestrations were noted on the diaphragm. A biologic mesh was affixed to the diaphragm after which mechanical and chemical pleurodesis were performed. She tolerated the procedure well and has been symptom free since. Herein, we review the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment strategies for catamenial pneumothorax in the hopes of increasing awareness and understanding of this rare cause of spontaneous pneumothorax.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Pneumothorax Pneumothorax Pneumothorax Pneumothorax Pneumothorax Diaphragm Diaphragm Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Female Humans Humans Menstruation Menstruation Middle Aged Middle Aged

Citation neighborhood (2-hop)

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. Outer rings show 2-hop neighbours — papers reached through the immediate citers/citees. [ collapse to 1-hop ]

References (25)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-14T06:08:39.101224+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:28:03.990958+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK