Treatment of a spontaneous primary pneumothorax (SPP) in a large teaching hospital

Abstract

Introduction: The cause and treatment of SPP is dependent on many factors. At this moment there is no definite consensus on the treatment of pneumothorax. Objectives: the present study exploits the strengths and weaknesses between the different treatments in our hospital. For quality reasons we investigated an optimal treatment algorithm of SPP. Methods: From 01-01-2007 till 31-12-2011, a retrospective review of documentation was performed for 152 adult patients who were diagnosed with a SPP presented at the Noord West Ziekenhuisgroep. Treatment strategies were compared to investigate which treatment was the most effective and had the lowest recurrence rate. Patients with more than one recurrent pneumothorax were excluded. Results: Median age was 32.2 yr with predominance of men (80.5 %). Mean follow up was 2.3 years. Table 1 shows the treatment strategy with failure and success rate and frequency of recurrence Conclusions: The study among 152 patients with SPP shows that less invasive methods such as observation and aspiration can be successful. When treatment failure is present a more invasive strategy should be used. We found an overall recurrence rate of 23.6%.