Measurements of pulmonary vasculatures in normal adult postero-anterior chest x-ray

ABSTRACT

In spite of recent introduction of such highly sophisticated diagnostic modalities as computerized tomography,cardioangiography and polytomography the simple PA chest remaines as an essential and important method of chestdiagnosis especially in terms of vascular diseases of the lung and heart. Until recently, however, theinterpretation of chest x ray has been largely dependent on much subjective observation of roentgen anatomy of thechest. Several years ago Simon proposed a quantitative approach to interpretation of the chest in an attempt tomake the judgement more objective. In the present study we have carried out a clinical study on normalities of thestandard PA chest of Korean adults. The materials consisted of 216 normal chest films. Age ranged from 20 to 60years and sex distribution 103 males and 113 females, We counted the number of vessels in both lung fields,measured the diameter of the basal artery and investigated the level of hilum points as well as hilar distance.There were 9 to 11 vessels in the upper zone and 9 to 12 in the lower zone. There were no significant sexdifference. The number of vessels was not affected by aging. The average diameter of the basal artery was11.7±2.4mm in the right lower zone and 10±1.8mm in the left lower zone in female. There was significant sexdifference (p 0.01). Aging seemed not to be affected the size of the basal artery. The majority of hilum point waslocated at the level of 5-6th rib at axillary portion and the left hilar point is 0.3-2.0cm higher in locationthan the right. The hilar distance was 4.1±0.4cm on the right 5.0±1.1cm on the left in male and 4.0±0.7cm onthe right and 4.7±0.5cm on the left in female. There was significant sex difference (p 0.01). There wassignificant difference in size of the basal arteries and hilar distance between the Koreans and Englishmen but thenumbers of vessels were not significantly different.