A Roentgenologic Study of the Child's Chest

Abstract

GENERALLY speaking, roentgenology in childhood is as dependent on clinical evidence as pediatrics is on the mother of the little patient. Just as the mother furnishes to the pediatrician the history of the case as well as part of the subjective symptomatology, the referring physician makes an intelligent examination possible, at times, only by giving to the roentgenologist full information about the case. Autopsy studies have increased our knowledge of intrathoracic pathology to such an extent that the interpretation of roentgen shadows in the adult's chest is not usually an enigma. The child's chest, however, is not so clearly understood, not only because we lack sufficient autopsy data but because the information derived from the mother or from the little patient is most often inaccurate and misleading. Roentgenology of the child's chest differs in a great measure from that of the adult, where we have rational patients who can follow directions. In children, the time of exposure must be so rapid as to o...