Diagnostic use of inadvertent pneumothorax after CT-guided percutaneous lung biopsy

Previous studies using artificially induced pneumothorax and post-pneumothorax computed tomography (pCT) have shown that 100% of cancers that fall away from the mediastinum or chest wall are contained within the visceral pleura at that site. This patient demonstrates how an unintentional, postbiopsy pneumothorax can be used to show that a peripheral carcinoma of the lung does not invade the mediastinum.