Abstract

Aim: Spontaneous pneumothorax is a rare condition, and no large series of pediatric cases exist in the literature. The nature of the disease in children is not very well known, therefore the planning of treatment in pediatric cases are done according to the information obtained from adult cases. In our series of 10 cases, we aimed to determine the prognostic factors and to discuss modes of treatment.

Material and Method: Ten cases of SP treated in our clinic in the last 15 years were presented with the results of 1-14 years of follow up.

Results: The age of the patients were between 7-18 years (mean:11.6 years). There was only one girl. All patients were treated with tube thoracostomy at the time of diagnosis. Only 2 (20 %) cases (one of them twice) had recurrence. These patients were aged 18 and 16 years, and were both male and actively involved with sports. In the 16 year old case, after the 2nd tube thoracostomy, he had no recurrence in the 7 year follow up. In the other case, after 2nd tube thoracostomy with added chemical pleurodesis by gentamycin through the tube, had a 2nd recurrence after 1 month. In the follow up of this case, we were informed that he was treated by an open surgical intervention in another center.

Conclusion: Advanced age, early recurrence, and an active sportive life are seen as the factors that may worsen the prognosis. We recommend that in the recurrence of cases with these factors, more interventional modes of treatments like video assisted thoracoscopy, or open thoracotomy with pleurectomy or pleurodesis may be needed. In the younger age groups, only tube thoracostomy seems to be sufficient in the treatment.