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Pneumothorax Pathology

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Pathology Paper 2: Pneumothorax
On July 18, 2017, a 57- year- old male patient arrived in the general X-Ray portion of the Imaging Center for a general follow up X-ray. According to the patient and his medical record, he had had a lung biopsy two days prior to his visit. General protocol for these types of procedures include post-operative chest X-Rays. These X-Rays -which are meant to assess post-operative changes of the heart and lungs- have special views, and are taken upright and upon expiration as opposed to normal inspiration. This is used to assess the patient for any sign of an abnormal lung or chest pathology. An example of this abnormal state is trapped air in the chest, or pneumothorax.
Pneumothorax (present in Bontrager on page …show more content…
A pneumothorax is classified as a PSP when the affected individual has no underlying health issues or traumatic injury. These most commonly occur when a small sac or bleb ruptures on the lung creating an imbalance in intrapleural pressure. These types of pneumothorax usually have no symptoms until they occur. However, when a patient is known to have underlying health issues, the classification is then deemed a secondary spontaneous pneumothoraces. These symptoms are generally more severe especially when the unaffected lung cannot replace the oxygen load lost by the affected lung. The third type occurs when the chest wall is pierced by either penetrating or blunt trauma (“pneumothorax”). This is classified as a traumatic pneumothorax and may be exacerbated by concomitant injuries. Traumatic injuries also have a higher risk of causing a tension pneumothorax in which the shifting mediastinal pressure eventually compresses the unaffected lung. All of the aforementioned have various symptoms that most commonly include chest pain, tightness, and dyspnea ("Chest X-Rays: Sorting Out Problems In Your …show more content…
Although the insertion of a needle into the chest wall was deliberate, it still compromised the integrity of the pressure balance due to penetrating trauma. Within the past 10 years, studies have suggested that 9%-54% of patients that have undergone lung biopsies developed a pneumothorax. The average of those studies hovers around 20% overall. However, this percentage can increase with patient age, underlying conditions, and increased needle depth in chest cavity

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