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Definition
By Mayo Clinic staff
Chest X-rays produce images of your heart, lungs, blood vessels, ribs and the bones of your spine. If you go to your doctor or the emergency room with chest pain or shortness of breath, chest X-rays can help determine whether you have heart failure, a collapsed lung, pneumonia, broken ribs or air accumulating in the space surrounding a lung (pneumothorax).
Chest X-rays can also reveal fluid in your lungs or in the spaces surrounding your lungs, enlargement of your heart, pneumonia, emphysema, cancer and many other conditions. Some people have a series of chest X-rays done over time, to track whether a particular health problem is getting better or worse.
In the past, the X-ray was printed out on film. Now, almost all chest X-rays are digital files that are viewed and stored electronically.
- Mettler FA. Chest. In: Mettler FA. Essentials of Radiology. 2nd ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2005. http://www.mdconsult.com/books/about.do?about=true&eid=4-u1.0-B0-7216-0527-3..50006-8&isbn=0-7216-0527-3&uniqId=239558037-3. Accessed April 14, 2011.
- Chest X-ray (chest radiography). Radiological Society of North America. http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?PG=chestrad. Accessed April 19, 2011.
- Chiles C, et al. Radiology of the chest. In: Chen MY, et al. Basic Radiology. 2nd ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2011. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=6668687. Accessed April 14, 2011.
- Radiation exposure in X-ray and CT examinations. Radiological Society of North America. http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/safety/index.cfm?pg=sfty_xray. Accessed April 19, 2011.
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