A couple born in the 1980s both suffered from lung cancer and cried and regretted: It turned out that the body had warned them long ago, but they just ignored it

Case: A few days ago, we received such a patient. Xiao Yang is a senior high school student. One night, when he was studying, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his right chest, and then felt chest tightness, accompanied by a stimulating dry cough. Xiao Yang thought he was overworked from studying, so he went home, washed up, lay down and fell asleep. In the middle of the night, the cough and chest tightness gradually worsened, and he had symptoms of shortness of breath. His family hurriedly called 120 and came to the emergency room. A chest X-ray showed spontaneous pneumothorax on the right side, with lung compression of 90%. So he was rushed to the hospital for closed chest drainage, and Xiao Yang's symptoms were quickly relieved.

What is pneumothorax: Pneumothorax is a common disease in thoracic surgery. The chest cavity of a normal person is airtight. Once there is a hole in the lung, air will enter, causing the lung to be compressed. Since the compressed lung can no longer exchange gas, the patient feels chest tightness. They often occur after running or holding heavy objects, and some patients may have pneumothorax when they are at rest, such as Xiao Yang in the above article. Severe pneumothorax can even be life-threatening.

Classification of pneumothorax: 1. According to the mechanism of occurrence, it is divided into:

Closed pneumothorax. Air enters the pleural cavity through the wound, and then the wound quickly closes, the pleural cavity is no longer connected to the outside world, and air can no longer enter.

Open pneumothorax. Unlike a closed pneumothorax, in an open pneumothorax the wound through which the gas enters remains open, and air moves in and out of the pleural cavity periodically with respiration.

Tension pneumothorax. This is a more serious type of pneumothorax. The wound through which the gas enters forms a one-way valve, which means that the gas can continue to enter the pleural cavity but cannot be discharged, resulting in a continuous increase in the pressure in the pleural cavity, causing serious consequences.

2. Depending on the presence or absence of primary disease, pneumothorax can also be divided into:

Primary pneumothorax. It usually occurs in healthy people with no obvious lesions in the past, especially in young people, especially those with a slender body.

Secondary pneumothorax. It is usually caused by other lung diseases.

Clinical manifestations of pneumothorax:

Typical symptoms:

Chest tightness, shortness of breath, cyanosis, cough, etc.

Common symptoms: Typical symptoms are sudden chest pain, followed by chest tightness and difficulty breathing, and may be accompanied by an irritating cough.

Other symptoms:

Elderly people with emphysema may experience obvious breathing difficulties even if the lungs are compressed by less than 10%.

Treatment of spontaneous pneumothorax:

Spontaneous pneumothorax generally does not require special treatment when the amount of gas is small. You can continue to observe and wait for the gas to be absorbed by itself. Pay attention to bed rest, adequate oxygen inhalation, and talk as little as possible to reduce lung activity, which is conducive to gas absorption and lung re-expansion.

If the amount of gas is large, thoracentesis or closed chest drainage is required.

For patients whose condition cannot be improved by thoracentesis and closed chest drainage, or for patients whose condition relapses multiple times, surgical treatment can be performed to prevent the recurrence of pneumothorax.

Spontaneous pneumothorax is one of the emergencies in our department. Severe cases can be life-threatening. Once symptoms of pneumothorax appear, you should go to the hospital as soon as possible to avoid delaying diagnosis and treatment.

Conclusion: The college entrance examination will be held in a few months. Because of the high pressure before the exam, there are several patients with spontaneous pneumothorax who come to the hospital for treatment every year. One year, a patient had to carry a chest closed drainage bottle to take the exam because he had just finished the operation. Here, I would like to remind parents that if your child has chest pain, chest tightness, or cough, you must remember to pay attention to spontaneous pneumothorax.