Can you restore a collapsed lung without a chest tube?

Only small ones.: Collapsed lungs ("pneumothorax") are very common after trauma and make occur spontaneously, often due to small blebs on the lung. In the era of ct scans, we find many, many pneumothoraces that would have been way too small to be seen on traditional chest x-ray. If it is small (~15-20%) and not associated with shortness of breath, a repeat x-ray will show resolution w/o rx most of the time.