Rare Lung Collapse After Chest Surgery Masqueraded as Bronchospasm, Case Report Warns

A 53-year-old woman recovering from anesthesia after minimally invasive lung surgery developed a life-threatening collapse of the lung on the side that had not been operated on, according to a case report from a nursing team at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, affiliated with Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China. The complication, a right-sided tension pneumothorax, emerged immediately after removal of her breathing tube following a thoracoscopic wedge resection of the left lung performed under one-lung ventilation. The report, accepted in the Intensive Care Medicine and Anesthesiology section of Frontiers in Medicine, describes how the emergency was initially mistaken for a far more routine postoperative problem.

The sequence of events began during extubation, when the patient experienced severe coughing and choking as her airway device was withdrawn. Right afterward, she became short of breath and clinicians heard wheezing on both sides of her chest. The clinicians pursued aggressive diagnostic and therapeutic measures aimed at that suspicion, but the respiratory abnormalities persisted despite their efforts.

Only after the ongoing deterioration could not be explained did the team identify the true cause: tension pneumothorax on the right, the contralateral, non-operated lung. Emergency needle decompression was performed to release the trapped air, and the patient was taken immediately for surgical exploration. Surgeons found the underlying mechanism: a band of pleural adhesions on the right side had ruptured, with ongoing air leakage through the torn tissue.

After definitive surgical treatment, the patient made a smooth recovery. The authors emphasize the diagnostic trap at the center of the case. A problem developing there, immediately after the breathing tube is removed, can present with wheezing and breathlessness that closely mimic bronchospasm.

The report notes that the patient initially maintained adequate oxygenation, which the authors say should not reassure clinicians: when unexplained respiratory abnormalities follow thoracic surgery, contralateral tension pneumothorax should be considered even if initial oxygen levels appear acceptable. The case also carries a practical lesson about cough management. The severe coughing and choking during extubation preceded the rupture, and the authors call for optimizing how coughing is handled around the time the airway is secured and released.

The report frames better cough control as a concrete, modifiable step for post-anesthesia and thoracic teams rather than an abstract recommendation. As a single-patient case report, the account cannot establish how often this complication occurs, which patients are most at risk, or whether specific extubation techniques would have prevented it. Tension pneumothorax on the non-operated side after thoracic surgery is described by the authors as rare, and the generalizability of one experience is inherently limited.

What the case does provide is a documented clinical trajectory, from misleading wheezing and preserved oxygenation to the eventual identification of a ruptured adhesion band with ongoing air leak, that other teams can weigh against their own postoperative patients. For clinicians working in post-anesthesia units, the report's core message is procedural vigilance: respiratory distress after thoracic surgery has a differential diagnosis that extends beyond airway problems, and the contralateral hemithorax deserves scrutiny when findings do not resolve with treatment directed at bronchospasm. In this instance, the combination of prompt needle decompression and immediate surgical exploration after the correct diagnosis was reached allowed a patient who had been in immediate danger to recover without further incident.

Subject of Research: Contralateral tension pneumothorax after thoracoscopic wedge resection

Article Title: Contralateral tension pneumothorax after extubation following thoracoscopic wedge resection: a case report

Article References: Chen, S., Zhou, N., Zhu, Y., Yang, X., & Lin, H. (2026). Contralateral tension pneumothorax after extubation following thoracoscopic wedge resection: a case report. Frontiers in Medicine, 13, Article 1958948. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2026.1958948

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2026.1958948

Keywords: tension pneumothorax, thoracic surgery, one-lung ventilation, extubation, post-anesthesia care unit, bronchospasm, case report, wedge resection, pleural adhesions, needle decompression, cough management, Contralateral