The entry of gas into the pleural cavity, resulting in a state of pneumoperitoneum, is called pneumothorax. It can occur spontaneously or can be caused by disease, trauma, surgery or improper diagnostic and therapeutic manipulation. Gas enters the pleural cavity through the chest wall, diaphragm, mediastinum or dirty pleura. The presence of gas in the pleural cavity often suggests an abnormal passage between the pleural cavity and the outside world (through the neck or chest wall), or between the pleural cavity and adjacent cavernous organs (such as the lungs, trachea, bronchi, esophagus, or subdiaphragmatic cavernous organs). Symptoms The severity of pneumothorax symptoms depends on the rapidity of onset, the degree of lung compression and the primary lung disease. Typical symptoms are sudden onset of chest pain followed by chest tightness and dyspnea, and may include an irritating cough. This chest pain is often pins-and-needles or knife-like and is brief in duration. The irritating dry cough is caused by gas irritation of the pleura. Most patients with an acute onset, a large pneumothorax, or those with pre-existing lung lesions have significant shortness of breath. Some patients have triggers such as violent cough, forceful breath-holding stool or heavy lifting before the occurrence of pneumothorax, but many patients develop it during normal activities or quiet rest. In young healthy people, moderate pneumothorax is rarely uncomfortable, and sometimes patients are only detected during physical examination or routine chest fluoroscopy; whereas in elderly people with emphysema, even if the lung compression is less than 10%, it can produce significant dyspnea. Patients with tension pneumothorax often show high nervousness, fear, irritability, shortness of breath, choking, cyanosis, sweating, weak and fast pulse, decreased blood pressure, wet and cold skin, and other shock states, and even unconsciousness and coma, which often cause death if not rescued in time. Pneumothorax patients usually do not have fever, elevated white blood cell count or increased sedimentation. If these manifestations are present, it often indicates the activity of the original lung infection (tuberculosis or septic) or the occurrence of complications (such as exudative pleurisy or abscess chest). Bilateral pneumothorax can occur in a small number of patients, and its incidence accounts for 2% to 9.2% of spontaneous pneumothorax, and even up to 20%. For those aged over 20 years, the ratio of men to women is 3:1. dyspnea is the prominent manifestation, followed by chest pain and cough. It was also found that the incidence of bilateral heterochronic spontaneous pneumothorax (i.e., one side occurs first and then becomes bilateral pneumothorax) is relatively higher than that of bilateral simultaneous spontaneous pneumothorax, reaching 83.9%. Some patients with pneumothorax with mediastinal emphysema have more severe dyspnea, often with marked cyanosis. More rarely, hemopneumothorax is produced by tearing of pleural adhesions or pleural vessels during the occurrence of pneumothorax, which may manifest as signs of shock such as pallor, cold sweat, weak pulse and decreased blood pressure if there is a large amount of bleeding. However, most patients have only a small amount of bleeding. If a patient with asthma has persistent asthma, if the condition continues to deteriorate after active treatment, consideration should be given to whether the patient has a pneumothorax; on the contrary, patients with pneumothorax sometimes have asthma-like manifestations with severe shortness of breath and even both lungs are covered with croup, but in such patients, once the pleural cavity is decompressed, the shortness of breath and croup will disappear. According to the presence or absence of primary disease, spontaneous pneumothorax can be divided into two types: primary and secondary pneumothorax. The factors that trigger pneumothorax are strenuous exercise, coughing, lifting heavy objects or upper arm high, weight lifting exercise, and forceful defecation. When coughing violently or relieving stool by force, the pressure in the alveoli rises, resulting in the rupture of the original damaged or defective lung tissue causing pneumothorax. Pneumothorax may occur if the air delivery pressure is too high when using artificial respirator. According to statistics, 50% to 60% of cases cannot find any obvious cause, and about 6% of patients even develop the disease while resting in bed. 1.Primary pneumothorax. Also known as idiopathic pneumothorax. It refers to the pneumothorax that occurs in healthy people whose lungs are not found to be obviously diseased by routine X-ray examination, which is more likely to occur in young people, especially in long and thin men. According to foreign literature, this kind of pneumothorax accounts for the first place of spontaneous pneumothorax, while secondary pneumothorax is the main cause in China. The causes and pathological mechanisms of this disease are not well defined. Most scholars believe that it is due to the rupture of subpleural bullae (blebs) and pulmonary blisters (bulla). According to the pathological histological examination of pulmonary bullae in patients with idiopathic pneumothorax, it is based on subpleural nonspecific inflammatory scarring, i.e., nonspecific inflammation around the fine bronchus causes scarring of the dirty pleura and subpleural elastic and collagen fibers to proliferate, which can reduce the elasticity of the adjacent alveolar wall leading to alveolar rupture and the formation of pulmonary bullae under the pleura. Nonspecific inflammation of the fine bronchioles themselves acts as a one-way activating valve, resulting in emphysematous changes in the interstitium or alveoli and the formation of pulmonary blisters. Certain scholars believe that congenital dysplasia of the lung tissue is responsible for the formation of pulmonary blisters. Marfan syndrome (a congenital hereditary connective tissue deficiency disease) is a typical example of spontaneous pneumothorax. There are reports of familial spontaneous pneumothorax in foreign countries. Miyagi reported 11 cases of family history among 725 cases of spontaneous pneumothorax, and Kimura reported the occurrence of spontaneous pneumothorax in siblings at the same time, which may imply the existence of genetic factors. 2. Secondary pneumothorax. The mechanism of its generation is based on other lung diseases and is caused by the formation of pulmonary blisters or direct injury to the pleura. It is often the basis of chronic obstructive pulmonary emphysema or post-inflammatory fibrotic lesions (such as silicosis, chronic tuberculosis, diffuse interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, cystic pulmonary fibrosis, etc.), where the fine bronchial inflammatory stenosis and distortion produce a live valve mechanism and the formation of pulmonary pneumothorax. The enlarged emphysematous alveoli degenerate due to nutritional and circulatory disorders. During coughing, sneezing or increased intrapulmonary pressure, it leads to rupture of the pulmonary blister causing pneumothorax. Among the 179 cases of spontaneous pneumothorax reported by Wu et al, chronic bronchitis complicated by emphysema accounted for the first place (38.5%), followed by tuberculosis accounting for 17.3%, idiopathic pneumothorax for 13.4% (3rd place), Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia for 12.3% (4th place), and the rest for other reasons. Diet and health care (1) peach kernel and safflower soup: 15 grams of peach kernel, 10 grams of safflower, 100 grams of lotus root powder. Decoct 200 ml of peach kernel and safflower liquid, then stir with lotus root powder. It is suitable for those with chest and Yang disorders. (2) Fresh orange juice: Peel and squeeze half a bowl of juice from fresh oranges, punch into rice wine and drink 2-3 spoonfuls each time, twice a day. It is suitable for people with liver depression and qi stagnation. (3) Coix rice porridge: Boil raw coix rice and white rice in the ratio of 1:3, and then add white rice to make porridge. It is suitable for those with phlegm-heat congestion in the lung. (4) Five juice drink: 500 grams each of fresh rhizome, snow pear (peeled), water chestnut (peeled), fresh lotus root, 100 grams of fresh maitake, squeeze juice and mix, take cold or warm twice a day. Suitable for those with deficiency of lung yin.