Not just Alice in Wonderland, it seems, but a bunch of our colleagues are chasing fluffy-tailed bunnies in their treatment of pneumothorax. Oxygen – in high concentrations – is used by some people to treat spontaneous, non-tension, pneumothorax. But why?

David Roberts, Paediatrician in Birmingham, UK, was set on the scent of this after an attendee at their emergency room was given oxygen overnight for a small pneumothorax and despite no obvious respiratory distress. Is there evidence for it, or is it (as with many things) just something we do because we think it should work?

Acknowledgement: Photo by leafar.