Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Case Reports
. 2024 Sep:83:162.e1-162.e3.
doi: 10.1016/j.ajem.2024.07.008. Epub 2024 Jul 9.

Giant pulmonary bullae mistaken for pneumothorax

Yingyi Ye  1 , Yefei Zhan  2
Affiliations
Case Reports

Giant pulmonary bullae mistaken for pneumothorax

Yingyi Ye et al. Am J Emerg Med. 2024 Sep.

Abstract

Differentiating between giant pulmonary bullae and pneumothorax can pose a challenge in clinical settings. A chest CT scan during the patient's health assessment revealed that approximately 40% of the right chest cavity was filled with air, leading to incomplete expansion of the right lung. The patient was initially misdiagnosed with pneumothorax in the emergency department and subsequently underwent closed thoracic drainage without experiencing any improvement in symptoms. Upon further examination through thoracoscopy, the patient was correctly diagnosed with a giant pulmonary bulla. Upon reviewing the patient's chest CT scan, we were able to identify key distinguishing features between giant pulmonary bullae and pneumothorax.

Keywords: Computed tomography; Lung; Pneumothorax; Pulmonary bullae; Thoracoscopy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Yefei Zhan reports financial support was provided by Ningbo No.2 Hospital (Project No. 2023-Y06). Yefei Zhan reports financial support was provided by Ningbo Municipal Health Commission (Project No. 2022-F16). If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

References

Publication types