Pneumothorax in supine projection

Changed by Craig Hacking, 15 Feb 2019

Updates to Article Attributes

Body was changed:

A pneumothorax does not display classical signs when a patient is positioned supine for a chest radiograph. Instead, the pneumothorax may be demonstrated by looking for the following signs:

  • relative lucency of the involved hemithorax
  • deep, sometimes tongue-like, costophrenic sulcus: deep sulcus sign 2
  • increased sharpness of the adjacent mediastinal margin and diaphragm
  • increased sharpness of the cardiac borders or diaphragm
  • visualisation of the anterior costophrenic sulcus: double diaphragm sign 3
  • visualisation of the inferior edge of the collapsed lung above the diaphragm
  • depression of the ipsilateral hemidiaphragm
  • lumpy appearance of the cardiac contour representing change in shape of the pericardial fat: pericardial fat tag sign
  • -<li>increased sharpness of the cardiac borders</li>
  • +<li>increased sharpness of the cardiac borders or diaphragm</li>
Images Changes:

Image 10 X-ray (Frontal) ( create )

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