THE RADIOLOGY OF ACUTE PULMONARY OEDEMA

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the X-ray appearances of acute pulmonary cedema occurring in heart failure, and to distinguish them from other shadows in the lung commonly associated with heart disease. It is based on films of patients taken during attacks of breathless- ness due to acute pulmonary cedema. The films were usually taken in the ward with a portable X-ray apparatus, a procedure causing little discomfort to the patient, though with the inherent disadvantages of a short tube-distance and a longer exposure time. Teleradiograms at six feet were taken at once in a few cases when the patient was admitted to hospital during an attack. Not every patient with paroxysmal dyspncea shows the radiological changes of acute pulmonary cedema, especially if the attack is mild; but such changes are frequently evanescent so that if examination is delayed even a few hours they may have vanished.