ABSTRACT
Introduction: Pneumothorax is the presence of air in the pleural space and can be due to a number of causes. Although most pneumothoraces can be managed successfully with tube thoracotomy, patients with recurring pneumothoraces should be considered for operative intervention. Methodology: All patients presenting to M. S. Ramaiah Medical College and Hospitals and diagnosed with pneumothorax during a period of 5-year were included in the study. These patients were clinically evaluated and were investigated using chest radiography/computerized tomography scan of thorax and then subjected to appropriate therapy. Fisher exact test has been used to find the significance of study parameters on a categorical scale between two or more groups. 95% confidence interval has been computed to find the significant features. A statistical analysis was done using IBM SPSS 20 statistical software. Results: The mean age of presentation in our study was 35.23 years. The majority of patients presented with chest pain (87.1%). The second most common symptom was found to be dyspnea (64.5%) followed by a cough (54.8%). Pneumothorax is usually unilateral and in our study 91.4% of cases presented with unilateral pneumothorax with 51.4% being right pneumothorax. Bilateral pneumothorax was found to be 8.6%. 62.8% of patients were diagnosed to have a spontaneous pneumothorax. The two main causes of secondary spontaneous pneumothorax were tuberculosis and pneumonia. Traumatic pneumothorax accounted for 28.5% of cases with road traffic accidents (80%) as the single largest cause. Conclusion: Primary spontaneous pneumothorax is the largest cause of pneumothorax. The most common symptom that patients present with is pleuritic chest pain. Chest radiographs are the imaging modality of choice for pneumothorax. Insertion of chest drains is the treatment of choice for pneumothoraces presenting for the 1st time. Exploratory thoracotomy and decortication are the treatment of choice for recurrent pneumothorax.