CASE REPORT   

Minerva Respiratory Medicine 2022 December;61(4):204-11

DOI: 10.23736/S2784-8477.21.01967-7

Copyright © 2021 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Spontaneous pneumothorax in COVID-19 patients: stage of illness does not matter

Shibu SASIDHARAN ¹ ✉, Gurdarshdeep S. MADAN ², Babitha SHIBU ³, Jignesh B. REDDY ⁴, Amit S. VASAN ⁵, Gurpreet K. DHILLON ⁶

¹ Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Level III IFH Hospital, Goma, Congo; ² Department of Radiodiagnosis, Level III IFH Hospital, Goma, Congo; ³ Department of Radiodiagnosis and Imaging, Alchemist Ojas Hospital, Panchkula, India; ⁴ Unit of Intervention Radiology, Department of Radiodiagnosis, AIG Hospital, Hyderabad, India; ⁵ Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Command Hospital, Chandimandir, India; ⁶ Department of Paediatrics, 166 Military Hospital, Jammu, India

The number of COVID-19 cases only seem to be soaring. As clinicians are making more progress in understanding this new disease, new complications associated with the disease are catching attention. We present five cases of spontaneous pneumothorax in patients with COVID-19. These cases reveal that a pneumothorax can develop at any phase of the disease, and in patients without any contributing history and/or association with mechanical ventilation due to COVID-19. One plausible explanation is bulla formation resulting to pneumothorax. Clinicians treating COVID-19 must be aware of this complication, which could emerge at any stage of the disease, and misinterpreting this dyspnea as progression of ARDS, could prove fatal to the patient.

KEY WORDS: Pneumothorax; Pneumomediastinum, diagnostic; COVID-19