Catamenial Pneumothorax: Report of a Case and Review of the Japanese and non-Japanese Literature

Shiraishi T, T Shiraishi, Tsuyoshi Shiraishi
The Thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon · 1991 · vol. 39(05) , pp. 304–307 · doi:10.1055/s-2007-1019992 · PMID:1785119 · W2396570851
review OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 30 in-corpus citations
Full text JSON View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This report details a case of catamenial pneumothorax in a 34-year-old Japanese woman, presenting diaphragmatic endometriosis and perforations, and compares its features with international literature.

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, 2026-06-07 · read from full text ⓘ

This paper reports a 34-year-old Japanese woman with two episodes of right catamenial pneumothorax occurring during menstruation, evaluated using chest imaging, drainage attempts, and subsequent thoracotomy. During surgery, the authors found small blue cysts with a central perforation in the right diaphragm and performed partial excision, with pathology showing endometrial glands and mesothelial cells, and fistulography demonstrating a pathway between thoracic and abdominal spaces that remained localized to the right paracolonic space. The authors then compare clinical and pathological features from Japanese cases, including this one, with those from English literature, while the case-based nature of the report limits generalizability. This paper is centrally about endometriosis—specifically, it identifies endometriosis of the diaphragm as the mechanism underlying catamenial pneumothorax that recurs with menstruation.

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

Abstract

A case of catamenial pneumothorax (CPT) was presented. The patient is a 34-year-old Japanese woman who had two histories of right pneumothorax occurring simultaneously with the menstruation. A thoracotomy, several blue cysts and tiny perforations were noted in the diaphragm. Partial excision of the lesion gave a favorable result. Pathological examination of the excised diaphragm revealed an endometriosis. Fisterography of the perforations at thoracotomy showed the pathway between thoracic and abdominal space. But the contrast medium didn't spread widely into the abdomen, but remained localized at the right paracolonic space, in accord with the right side predominancy of the endometriosis of the diaphragm which causes the CPT. The clinical and pathological features in Japanese cases including our own case are compared with those in English literature.
Full text 2,303 characters · extracted from oa-doi-fallback · click to expand
Subscribe to RSS DOI: 10.1055/s-2007-1019992 © Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York Catamenial Pneumothorax: Report of a Case and Review of the Japanese and non-Japanese Literature Menstruations-bedingter Pneumothorax: Fallbericht und japanische LiteraturübersichtPublication History 1991 Publication Date: 19 March 2008 (online) Summary A case of catamenial pneumothorax (CPT) was presented. The patient is a 34-year-old Japanese woman who had two histories of right pneumothorax occurring simultaneously with the menstruation. A thoracotomy, several blue cysts and tiny perforations were noted in the diaphragm. Partial exicison of the lesion gave a favorable result. Pathological examination of the excised diaphragm revealed an endometriosis. Fisterography of the perforations at thoracotomy showed the pathway between thoracic and abdominal space. But the contrast medium didn't spread widely into the abdomen, but remained localized at the right paracolonic space, in accord with the right side predominancy of the endometriosis of the diaphragm which causes the CPT. The clinical and pathological features in Japanese cases including our own case are compared with those in English literature. Zusammenfassung Es wird über den Fall einer 34jährigen Japanerin berichtet, die erstmalig 1989 mit einem rechtsseitigen Thoraxschmerz am 2. Tag ihrer Menstruation zur Aufnahme gelangte. Bei einer Thoraxröntgenaufnahme zeigte sich ein großer rechtsseitiger Pneumothorax, der mit einer Drainage behandelt wurde. Einen Monat später - am 1. Tag der nächsten Periode - trat erneut ein Pneumothorax auf, eine Drainagebehandlung versagte. Bei einer daraufhin durchgeführten Thorakotomie zeigte sich ein kleines Bläschen im Mittellappen sowie einige kleine blaue Zysten mit einer zentralen Perforation des rechten Zwerchfells. Es erfolgte eine partielle Exzision des Zwerchfells mit einer Übernähung. Bei der histologischen Aufarbeitung der entnommenen Zwerchfellgewebsstücke zeigten sich endometriale Drüsen und mesotheliale Zellen, so daß als Ursache der Perforation eine Endometriose angenommen werden kann. Die Patientin ist 1 Jahr nach der Operation bei völligem Wohlbefinden; das Krankheitsbild wird anhand der Literatur diskutiert. Key words Catamenial pneumothorax - Peritoneography - Endometriosis

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

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Diaphragm Endometriosis Menstruation Pneumothorax Adult Endometriosis Female Humans Japan Muscular Diseases Muscular Diseases Pneumothorax Pneumothorax

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.

Cited by (27)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-09-21T06:08:07.822426+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:11:54.876058+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK