Abstract
The patient was a 76-year-old man who had a tumor of the left lung S3 with carcinomatous pleural effusion, multiple lung, liver, and bone metastases. The cytologic diagnosis of the pleural effusion was class V (adenocarcinoma), and clinical stage was c-T4N2M1 (stage IV). His performance status (PS) was 3. The effusion was positive for EGFR mutation. Therefore administration of gefitinib was started after we obtained the informed consent from the patient. Left pulmonary collapse was noted on the 9th day after the administration, but th gefitinib regimen caused shrinkage of the primary foci and the intrapulmonary metastatic foci also shrank, showing PR. Conservative therapy for pneumothorax was unsuccessful, and surgical therapy was performed.
We present this case here, because there have been no reports on pneumothorax developed during gefinitib regimen an treated surgically and because this case in which histopathological evaluation could be done is considered valuable.
