Dr. Elena Vasquez squinted at the illuminated chest X-ray on her monitor. The patient, 72-year-old Mr. Harrison, was short of breath, unable to lie flat, and his ankles were swollen to twice their normal size.
In Mr. Harrison’s case, his failing left ventricle had backed up pressure into the pulmonary veins. That pressure had forced fluid out of the capillaries and into the interlobular septa—the thin connective tissue walls between the lung’s tiny air sacs. Normally invisible, these septa had thickened with fluid just enough to become visible on X-ray. kerley b lines on chest x ray
But it was a subtle detail in the lung periphery that caught her attention. 72-year-old Mr. Harrison
