Should Pneumothorax Developing During the Recovery Period After COVID-19 in Patients with Previously Healthy Lungs be Considered a Primary Spontaneous Pneumothorax or a Secondary Spontaneous Pneumothorax?

It is still unknown how to call the pneumothorax that develops during the recovery period after coronavirus disease 2019. Patients who developed pneumothorax during the recovery period after coronavirus disease 2019 were compared with those who had a primary or secondary spontaneous pneumothorax without a coronavirus disease 2019 history.

Between 2020 and 2021, 160 patients with pneumothorax were retrospectively analyzed. Twenty-three patients had a history of coronavirus disease 2019 (coronavirus disease recovery) confirmed by real-time reverse transcriptase-polyme rase chain reaction, whereas the remaining 137 patients did not have a history of coronavirus disease 2019 (18 of the patients with secondary spontaneous pneumothorax group and 119 patients with primary spontaneous pneumothorax group).

The median time between discharge and readmission to the hospital because of pneumothorax was 9 days in the coronavirus disease recovery group. There were statistically significant differences in regards to age (P < .001), gender (P = .02), the presence of bullae (P = .02), and dystrophic severity lung score (P = .04) between the coronavirus disease recovery and primary spontaneous pneumothorax groups, whereas no difference was found between the coronavirus disease recovery and the secondary spontaneous pneumothorax groups (P > .05). The prolonged air leak was observed in 17.6% (n = 25). Patients who had prolonged air leak were statistically higher in the coronavirus disease recovery group than the primary spontaneous pneumothorax group (56.5% vs. 10.1%), although it was almost similar between the coronavirus disease recovery and secondary spontaneous pneumothorax groups (P = .951). On logistic regression analysis, the coronavirus disease recovery group was the independent factor for prolonged air leak (odds ratio = 9.900, 95% CI = 1.557- 62.500, P = .01).

Pneumothorax may be developed during the recovery period after coronavirus disease 2019 in patients with previously healthy lungs, and it should be called as secondary spontaneous pneumothorax.