Unilateral Pneumothorax Secondary to Acupuncture in An Asthmatic Patient : One Complain, Two Suspect
Abstract
Background: Acupuncture is one of the most popular type of alternative complimentary medicine that has been practice all over the world nowadays. It is an invasive procedure where small needle being used at certain point on the body. The Chinese style of acupuncture tends to insert it deep within the muscle, while the Japanese style entails insertion into the subcutaneous tissue Hence it carries with it certain risks of adverse events which majority is minor complication. However few cases of bilateral pneumothorax including bilateral tension pneumothorax have been reported before.
Case presentation: We report an interesting case of a 57-year-old lady with long standing asthma, which presented similar as asthmatic attack but later found out she developed pneumothorax following acupuncture therapy.
Conclusion: Acupuncture is still can be consider as an efficient and relatively safe with minimal complication. We suggest patient with long standing asthma or chronic lung disease to have a base line chest x-ray in a patient before proceeding with acupuncture on the chest area, meanwhile as family physician and emergency physician doctor need to have high index of suspicion if patient has sign and symptoms of pneumothorax which can be fatal if missed diagnosed as asthmatic attack.
