Spontaneous pneumothorax may complicate pneumothorax therapy for pulmonary tuberculosis at any time during the course of treatment. It is always a serious and may be a fatal complication. It invariably requires emergency treatment.
Although many writers recognize perforation of the lung at the base of an adhesion as one of the ways in which a spontaneous pneumothorax may develop during pneumothorax treatment, a survey of recent literature fails to disclose mention of pneumonolysis as a specific form of surgical intervention to cure this particular type of spontaneous pneumothorax. There is no reference to it in Alexander's book "The Collapse Therapy of Pulmonary Tuberculosis" or in Matson's writings.
Since November 1936, spontaneous pneumothorax has developed in three patients under my care following a therapeutic refill, which, as will be shown, was the result of a tear in the visceral pleura at the base of an adhesion, with the adhesion remaining attached