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Case report
Reporting of pneumothorax in association with vaping devices and electronic cigarettes
  1. Dietmar H Borchert1,
  2. Hagen Kelm2,
  3. Meghan Morean3 and
  4. Andrea Tannapfel4
  1. 1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane, Neuruppin, Germany
  2. 2Respiratory Medicine, Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane, Neuruppin, Germany
  3. 3Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
  4. 4Pathology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
  1. Correspondence to Dr Dietmar H Borchert; dietmar.borchert{at}doctors.org.uk

Abstract

Vaping may lead to spontaneous pneumothorax, but there are few published reports on this phenomenon. We present a case of vaping-related pneumothorax and make recommendations for structured reporting of this emerging cause for pneumothorax. A normal-weight 34-year-old male presented to our emergency department with dyspnoea and back pain increasing over 24 hours. Chest X-ray showed a large right-sided pneumothorax. Three years ago, he had quit smoking cigarettes and switched to vaping. CT scan revealed bullae, and the patient received apical lung resection. Histology revealed mild alveolitis. Vaping is an emerging cause of lung injury. This report demonstrates a potential association between vaping and pneumothorax. However, structured reporting and future research are needed to establish a definitive (or causal) relationship between vaping and pneumothorax.

  • pneumomediastinum
  • pneumothorax
  • drug misuse (including addiction)
  • tobacco-related disease
  • cardiothoracic surgery
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2021-247844

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors DHB provided surgical service to the patient reported here, HK provided respiratory medicine support and counselling services to the patient and supervised reporting of the case, MM first advised on psychometric testing of the patient and than co-wrote and corrected the case report including discussion of requirements from the reviewers and AT performed extensive testing of the lung specimen resected. AT was involved as a champion in lung pathology and advised on writing of the report.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Case reports provide a valuable learning resource for the scientific community and can indicate areas of interest for future research. They should not be used in isolation to guide treatment choices or public health policy.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.