The thoracoscopic approach to pneumothorax in children

Abstract

Spontaneous pneumothorax has an occurrence of 3.4 in 10,000 hospitalized infants and of 1 in 10,000 hospitalized children (Alter 1997), whereas the incidence in cystic fibrosis above the age of ten rises to 5.1% (Kuster et al. 1988). The first symptom of spontaneous pneumothorax is a sudden, sharp, "burning" pleuritic pain out of perfect well being, sometimes treated as "back pain" or ipsilateral shoulder pain. Underlying pathologies are cystic fibrosis, asthma, cystic malformations, postinfectious bullae, infectious pneumonias, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Marfan syndrome, or endometriosis, i.e., catamenial pneumothorax (Hssler et al. 1999), while in developing countries tuberculosis, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), or parasites such as hydatid disease and Ascaris lumbricoides are reported causes. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008.