Peter Doelken

Apr 4, 2023 | thelancet.com | Amit Chopra |Marc A. Judson |Najib M. Rahman |Peter Doelken

A penetrating needle injury to the lung does not cause extravasation of the air into the pleural space in most cases. The rate of clinically significant pneumothorax is only 7% after CT-guided transthoracic lung biopsy during which the biopsy needle usually traverses the lung parenchyma one or more times.Despite this well known benign outcome from needle penetration of the lung, it is underappreciated that this phenomenon has profound implications for the management of pneumothorax.