Introduction

Welcome to this website dedicated to chest sonography. Sonography is a well-established diagnostic method  which was assumed to be of no benefit for a chest examination. However, in v recent years this has been shown to be not entirely true,  and this method is being used more and more even for the diagnosis of lung disease - especially in  acute conditions - and as an imaging method while performing invasive procedures.

This sonographic atlas is designed especially for pulmonologists, for whom the primary imaging methods are X-ray and CT. For this reason for almost  all findings (where beneficial) a general chest image or CT of the chest is shown for illustration, as well as the sonographic findings with  a description. Alternatively, they can also gain  other expertise  from this atlas (intensive care, pediatrics, general medicine, interns, etc.).

Since the main advantage of sonography is that it captures images in real time, most of the findings are shown in  the form of short video clips, each with a description of the static image.

I would like to emphasize that this sonographic atlas is not a textbook, so it is appropriate to combine the study with some literature. I suggest the monograph Whole Body Ultrasonography in the Critically Ill by Daniel A. Lichtenstein, published by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010, from which the terminology used in the atlas is taken.

Given that the video sequences were created within the every-day running of the pulmonary ward the images are not always perfect. But they are real and unedited, just as they were seen during the examinations.  We had a sector and a linear probe at our disposal, which is why  findings from both the probes can be seen in the atlas.

Most of the findings in this atlas are states which a pulmonologist may come across the most frequently (pleural effusion, tumours, pneumothorax, etc.). I have also included some less common findings (lung herniation in the chest wall) for those who may be interested.

As nothing is perfect, even this atlas is not free of errors, so I welcome your questions, suggestions and proposals for developing it further.

How to use the atlas

In the upper left-hand corner there is a pictogram of a chest with the approximate position of the probe, which is shown in orange. In the video sequences and the static pictures we have a scale in centimeters on the right-hand side. If you click on the icon  in the video sequences (bottom right-hand corner of the video), you can see the video on the whole screen.

Good luck in your studies! I hope that my work will be useful and beneficial to others.

I dedicate it to all those who supported the creation of this atlas ....

MUDr. Rastislav Šimek