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Decreased Lung Attenuation

  • Chapter
Computed Tomography of the Lung

Part of the book series: Medical Radiology ((Med Radiol Diagn Imaging))

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Abstract

The decreased lung attenuation pattern develops when the density of the lung parenchyma decreases. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the normal lung density on CT is slightly higher than air and is determined by the balance between air in the airspaces and in the small airways, on one hand, and the soft tissue structures that have a higher density than air but that are as such not individually visible on the other hand. These soft tissue structures include the (interstitial) lung tissues, the wall of the small airways and blood vessels and the blood in these vessels. A decrease in lung attenuation can be observed when this balance is disturbed by either an abnormal increase in the amount of air, an abnormal decrease in the intravascular blood volume with, as a result, a smaller calibre of the small vessels, and in case of loss of (interstitial) lung tissue. Each of these phenomena may result in a different decreased lung attenuation pattern (Fig. 5.1).

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Authors
  1. Johny A. Verschakelen
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  2. Walter De Wever
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© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Verschakelen, J.A., De Wever, W. (2007). Decreased Lung Attenuation. In: Computed Tomography of the Lung. Medical Radiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68260-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68260-8_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-26187-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-68260-8

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