Chest X-Ray pneumothorax question

[MrAgreeable]

Can one of you aspiring Dr. House's 'splain this to me?

A certain question I encountered has a question with a spontaneous pneumothorax, which I figured to be "tension" so I picked the old contralateral deviation. Well the answer was that there is a hemidiaphragm on the affected side. I don't remember learning this in class and haven't encountered it yet I don't think so can someone explain this to me please?

THANKS!

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[justaregularmed]

Can one of you aspiring Dr. House's 'splain this to me?

A certain question I encountered has a question with a spontaneous pneumothorax, which I figured to be "tension" so I picked the old contralateral deviation. Well the answer was that there is a hemidiaphragm on the affected side. I don't remember learning this in class and haven't encountered it yet I don't think so can someone explain this to me please?

THANKS!

(Assuming DIT is correct)

It's sort of a level of severity. A tension penmo can get worse so bad that the free air in the chest starts to deviate the trachea. The spontaneous is usually quick and resolves so it can be even more subtle (just a little tiny bit of free air where the lung isn't touching the chest), I guess they are going for "its pretty bad but its not getting worse."