A Young Man with Bilateral Spontaneous Pneumothorax

• Main Author: Liese Lieve Willemien Verhaert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2011-01-01
• Series: Case Reports in Pulmonology
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/414165

Case. A 33-year-old male nonsmoker presented with sudden onset of dyspnoea and thoracic pain. Chest radiograph showed a left-sided pneumothorax. Few days later he developed a right-sided pneumothorax. He had a positive family history of pneumothorax. High-resolution computed tomography of the chest showed multiple pulmonary cysts predominantly located in the lower lung regions. We suspected Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome (BHD). Conclusion. Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome is a rare autosomal dominant inherited genodermatosis and characterised by clinical manifestations including hamartomas of the skin, renal tumors, and pulmonary cysts with spontaneous pneumothorax. BHD is probably underdiagnosed because of the wide variability in its clinical expression. It is important to recognize these patients because of the possibility of developing renal cancer.