Thoracic Endometriosis With Recurrent Spontaneous Pneumothorax

THE PRESENCE of endometrial tissue in the chest is an unusual finding. To the authors' knowledge only ten cases of thoracic endometriosis have been reported. Of these, six were in the pulmonary parenchyma and four others in the pleura. One of these involved the diaphragm on the right and, is the only reported case of recurrent spontaneous pneumothoraces coincident with menstruation.1The following case is of interest because of recurrent spontaneous pneumothoraces occurring with menstruation and because of the histologic appearance of the tissue obtained at thoracotomy. Report of a Case A 34-year-old white woman, gravida 3 and para 3, was admitted to the hospital with a spontaneous pneumothorax on the right (Fig 1). She related a history of five previous episodes of spontaneous pneumothorax, all on the right side. The first pneumothorax occurred three months after the birth of her last child, six years before. Each pneumothorax occurred