At the beginning of the last century, Pasteur described postoperative pulmonary atelectasis, analysed postoperative pulmonary complications (PCC; see below) and noted: `when the true history of postoperative lung complications comes to be written, active collapse of the lung, from de®ciency of inspiratory power, will be found to occupy an important position among determining causes'. Indeed, at...

General anesthesia is known to cause pulmonary atelectasis; in turn, atelectasis increases shunt, decreases compliance, and may lead to perioperative hypoxemia. One mechanism for the formation of atelectasis intraoperatively is ventilation with 100% oxygen. The goal of this review is to determine if research suggests that intraoperative ventilation with 100% oxygen leads to clinically significa...

Rounded atelectasis is atelectasis of the peripheral part of the lung, typically in contact with thickened pleura, featuring characteristic computed tomography findings. In this case, a 61-year-old man with history of asbestos exposure presented with a right-middle-lobe nodule on chest radiograph, with computed tomography findings suspicious for neoplasm. The patient underwent surgical resectio...

During a 10-year period 28 patients with shrinking pleuritis with atelectasis (SPA) were observed and operated upon. This lesion has been given different names in the literature, for instance rounded atelectasis, pleuroma, pulmonary pseudotumour, and lung folding. All patients except two were operated upon because of a diagnosis of pulmonary tumour. However, at operation no tumour was found. Th...

ATELECTASIS (COLLAPSE) is loss of lung volume caused by inadequate expansion of airspaces; this leads to shunting of inadequately oxygenated blood from pulmonary arteries into veins, thus giving rise to hypoxia. Pathogenetically atelectasis is classified into three forms 1. Resorption atelectasis complicating obstruction. The air already present distally gradually becomes absorbed, and alveolar...

In a patient with lobar atelectasis who was on positive pressure ventilatory support, ventilation and perfusion images showed absent ventilation and normal perfusion (reverse mismatch) in the region of the atelectasis and normal ventilation and decreased perfusion (true mismatch) not caused by pulmonary embolism in another lung zone. We report this case to emphasize that the lung scan findings ...

Lungs of unselected cadavers were fixed at necropsy using a formalin vapour technique. "Band shadows" were identified in the excised lungs and these were correlated with in vivo radiographs and with the morphological changes in the lung. Persistent shadows were produced by pulmonary infarction, subsegmental atelectasis, and septal fibrosis singly and in combination. Potentially transient shadow...

Bronchial thermoplasty (BT) is a bronchoscopic treatment for severe asthma using thermal energy to reduce smooth muscle in the bronchial wall. A 47-year-old man underwent BT for uncontrolled severe asthma despite maximal pharmacological treatment. After a third procedure, he experienced hypoxaemia because of complete bilateral upper lobe atelectasis. A pulmonary cyst suddenly emerged in to the ...