Medical thoracoscopy in thoracic endometriosis: a diagnostic tool in a rare scenario

Nashin Najeeb, Athul Thulasi, Rajathilakam Natarajan Kumari, Kiran Jose, Angel Varghese
In: International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences · 2026 · vol. 14(6) , pp. 2620–2624 · doi:10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20261714 · W7162816128
article OA: diamond CC0
🔓 Open OA copy Full text JSON View on OpenAlex View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-04 ⓘ

Medical thoracoscopy successfully diagnosed thoracic endometriosis in a patient presenting with recurrent right hydropneumothorax and cyclical chest pain and dyspnea, symptoms correlating with menstruation.

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

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-04 · read from full text ⓘ

The paper describes a case in which medical thoracoscopy was used to evaluate pleural disease when initial diagnostic steps and conventional therapies were not sufficient, focusing on thoracic endometriosis presenting as catamenial pleural pathology. A 29-year-old woman with secondary infertility and recurrent right-sided chest pain and dyspnea developed right hydropneumothorax on imaging, and because her symptoms tracked cyclically with menstruation, thoracic endometriosis was suspected and confirmed by histopathology obtained via medical thoracoscopy. The main limitation is that this is a single case report, so findings cannot establish broader diagnostic accuracy. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it presents medical thoracoscopy as a diagnostic tool for thoracic endometriosis in a rare scenario with catamenial symptoms.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Medical thoracoscopy is a tool employed in the evaluation of pleural effusions when initial diagnostic thoracocentesis and standard conventional therapies prove to be ineffective. Thoracic endometriosis (TE) is an uncommon form of extra pelvic endometriosis, characterized by endometrial cells in thoracic cavity which can be parenchymal, pleural and diaphragmatic. TE typically manifest as catamenial pneumothorax followed by catamenial hemothorax, catamenial hemoptysis and occasionally as pulmonary nodules. We present a case involving a 29 year old female experiencing secondary infertility and recurrent right sided chest pain and dyspnea since three months. Chest radiography revealed right hydropneumothorax. As her symptoms correlated cyclically with menstruation, a high suspicion of TE was made and later confirmed on histopathology by medical thoracoscopy.
Full text 4,956 characters · extracted from oa-doi-fallback · click to expand
Medical thoracoscopy in thoracic endometriosis: a diagnostic tool in a rare scenario DOI: https://doi.org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20261714Keywords: Thoracic endometriosis syndrome, Catamenial pneumothorax, Medical thoracoscopy, Pleural endometriosis, Secondary infertility, Hormonal and surgical managementAbstract Medical thoracoscopy is a tool employed in the evaluation of pleural effusions when initial diagnostic thoracocentesis and standard conventional therapies prove to be ineffective. Thoracic endometriosis (TE) is an uncommon form of extra pelvic endometriosis, characterized by endometrial cells in thoracic cavity which can be parenchymal, pleural and diaphragmatic. TE typically manifest as catamenial pneumothorax followed by catamenial hemothorax, catamenial hemoptysis and occasionally as pulmonary nodules. We present a case involving a 29 year old female experiencing secondary infertility and recurrent right sided chest pain and dyspnea since three months. Chest radiography revealed right hydropneumothorax. As her symptoms correlated cyclically with menstruation, a high suspicion of TE was made and later confirmed on histopathology by medical thoracoscopy. Metrics References Agarwal N, Subramanian A. Endometriosis-morphology, clinical presentations and molecular pathology. J Lab Physicians. 2010;2(1):1-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/0974-2727.66699 Vinatier D, Orazi G, Cosson M, Dufour P. Theories of endometriosis. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 2001;96(1):21-34. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0301-2115(00)00405-X Alifano M, Trisolini R, Cancellieri A, Regnard JF. Thoracic endometriosis: current knowledge. Ann Thorac Surg. 2006;81(2):761-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.athoracsur.2005.07.044 Joseph J, Sahn SA. Thoracic endometriosis syndrome: new observations from an analysis of 110 cases. Am J Med. 1996;100(2):164-70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9343(97)89454-5 Channabasavaiah AD, Joseph JV. Thoracic endometriosis: revisiting the association between clinical presentation and thoracic pathology based on thoracoscopic findings in 110 patients. Medicine (Baltimore). 2010;89(3):183-8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0b013e3181df67d5 Sampson JA. Peritoneal endometriosis due to the menstrual dissemination of endometrial tissue into the peritoneal cavity. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1927;14:422-69. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9378(15)30003-X Alifano M, Roth T, Broët SC, Schussler O, Magdeleinat P, Regnard JF. Catamenial pneumothorax: a prospective study. Chest. 2003;124(3):1004-8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.124.3.1004 Makhija Z, Marrinan M. A case of catamenial pneumothorax with diaphragmatic fenestrations. J Emerg Med. 2012;43(1):e1-3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2009.05.023 Maurer ER, Schaal JA, Mendez FL Jr. Chronic recurring spontaneous pneumothorax due to endometriosis of the diaphragm. JAMA. 1958;168(15):2013-4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1958.63000150008012c Fukunaga M. Paratesticular endometriosis in a man with prolonged hormonal therapy for prostatic carcinoma. Pathol Res Pract. 2012;208(1):59-61. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prp.2011.10.007 Joseph J, Reed CE, Sahn SA. Thoracic endometriosis: recurrence following hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and successful treatment with talc pleurodesis. Chest. 1994;106(6):1894-6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.106.6.1894 Nwiloh J. Diaphragmatic patch: a useful adjunct in surgical treatment of recurrent catamenial hemothorax. Rev Port Pneumol. 2011;17(6):278-80. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rppnen.2011.11.006 Hibbard LT, Schumann WR, Goldstein GE. Thoracic endometriosis: a review and report of two cases. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1981;140(2):227-32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9378(81)90112-5 Chatterjee S, Mukhoti K, Chakraborty A. Catamenial pneumothorax in thoracic endometriosis syndrome. Lung India. 2024;41(3):217-8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/lungindia.lungindia_576_23 Sharma P, Karmakar S, Wani AR, Venugopal V, Maji D. Thoracic endometriosis syndrome diagnosed by dry thoracoscopy: Novel diagnostic method for a rare disease. Lung India. 2025;42(2):147-50. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/lungindia.lungindia_576_24 Hope-Gill B, Prathibha B. Catamenial haemoptysis and clomiphene citrate therapy. Thorax. 2003;58(1):89. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/thorax.58.1.89 Chetambath R, Karedath G, Chandran S. Thoracic Endometriosis Detected During Medical Thoracoscopy in a Tertiary Care Setting-A Retrospective Observational Study. J Pulmonol Res Rep. 2024;6(4):1-4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.47363/JPRR/2024(6)172 Nezhat C, Nicoll LM, Bhagan L, Huang JQ, Bosev D, Hajhosseini B, et al. Endometriosis of the diaphragm: four cases treated with a combination of laparoscopy and thoracoscopy. J Minimally Invas Gynecol. 2009;16(5):573-80. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmig.2009.06.012 Light RW. Pleural disease. 5th edition. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins: Baltimore. 2007.

Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below. Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy (via DOI) is the canonical version.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

⚙ Ask this paper AI returns verbatim quotes from the full text · source: oa-doi-fallback ⓘ

Answers must be backed by verbatim quotes from this paper's full text. Hallucinated quotes are dropped automatically; if no verbatim passage answers the question, we say so. How this works

Condition tags

endometriosisthoracic_endometriosisinfertility

Citation neighborhood

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. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (18)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-07-31T06:01:29.331002+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK