2014 Volume 28 Issue 7 Pages 854-859
Female pneumothorax, especially premenopausal female pneumothorax, has been considered to be a more complicated pathology than male pneumothorax or menopausal female pneumothorax. We evaluated the clinical characteristics of 15 of 195 (7.7%) surgical cases of female pneumothorax during the past 5 years in our institution. The average age of the patients was 25.7 years (range, 14-41 years). There were nine cases of initial pneumothorax and eight cases of recurrence. The Brinkmann index in the recurrent cases was significantly higher than that in the initial cases. According to the body mass index, affected patients tended to be of slight build, similar to juvenile male pneumothorax cases. Only one patient was diagnosed with catamenial pneumothorax, while the others were diagnosed with spontaneous pneumothorax. All patients underwent bullectomy, plication, or ablation for bullae or blebbing under video-assisted thoracic surgery. The serum CA125 level in the pleural effusion was high in eight patients (normal value, <35 U/ml), whereas that in six patients without primary endometriosis or catamenial pneumothorax was within normal limits. The serum and pleural CA125 levels in patients with right-sided pneumothorax were higher than those in patients with left-sided pneumothorax. The drainage period after surgery was 2-5 days (average, 2.7 days). Postoperative complications comprised two cases of air leakage and one case of subcutaneous emphysema, none of which required treatment. To date, there have been no recurrences since surgery.
