The Roentgen Diagnosis of Massive Atelectasis of the Lung

Abstract

MASSIVE atelectasis has been known for a long time, but it is the work of Pasteur, published in 1910, that has been the stimulus and the basis for the more recent investigations in this field. Such able essayists as Bowen, Lee, Tucker and his associates, and Coryllos and Birnbaum have presented experimental evidence which does much to reveal the process of events which leads up to this interesting condition. However, in spite of much recent interest in massive atelectasis, there are, unquestionably, many cases which are incorrectly considered as pneumonia. The term is applied to a condition of collapse of one or more lobes of the lung. The cause of this collapse is generally accepted to be the complete occlusion of a bronchus, by an aspirated foreign body within a bronchus, or, as is far more common, a mucous plug. The symptomatology will vary within wide limits from the catastrophe” of Lee to the case which presents no symptoms whatever. Physical examination will, in many instances, fail to reveal the tr...