Abstract
The prevalence of pulmonary pargonimiasis in Korea has been steadily decreasing due to develop of the public health, and there have been few clinical cases of paragonimiasis infections, especially in pneumothorax. A 22-year-old man referred to emergency department for dyspnea and chest pain. The right lung was totally collapsed on a chest X-ray. We emergently performed a closed thoracostomy with a 28-Fr chest tube. However, the air leak from the chest tube persisted for three days after the closed thoracostomy. A chest computed tomography showed multiple subpleural consolidative nodular lesions and mixed ground-glass attenuation nodules. We potentially suspected a secondary pneumothorax resulting from pulmonary paragonimiasis infection because the patient was a Chinese man who was working at a Korean restaurant. We decided to perform a medical treatment instead of pulmonary wedge resections. The air leak was discontinued three days after the prescription of praziquantel. The patient was discharged nine days after the admission. We suggest that anti-parasitic drugs are very effective in the secondary pneumothorax resulting from paragonimiasis.