If a person is facing away from me, so I am looking at their back, their right lung should be on my right and their heart apex should be pointing to my left.On the postero-anterior chest X-ray, why does the right lung appear on my left and the apex of the heart point to my right?Is the image being flipped horizontally?And if this is the way they are done, why are they done this way?
Thanks
[I hope that I haven't made a stupid mistake in my explanation and that you all can understand my explanation!]
Answer:
X-rays are always viewed as if the patient is facing you. This is the anatomical position So, when you are looking at a chest x-ray, the heart (on the left side of the patient) is on your right side. If you hold up your right hand, the heart/left side of the patient will be on that side. When I went to x-ray school, I had such trouble with this. It can be very confusing. I do not know why the medical field started hanging x-rays this way, but they do!I hope I am interpreting and answering your question correctly.update your question if I am misunderstanding you!EDIT: It does not matter if the chest x-ray is taken PA or AP, the heart (left side) always hangs to the viewer's right side...EDIT #2:Yeah, I guess you can say it is being flipped horizontally. As you are looking at the x-ray, the patient's left side is on the viewers right.All x-rays are viewed that way. A mammogram of the right breast is hung on the viewer's left side. A right hip x-ray is hung on the viewer's left side.Remember it is as if the patient is in front of you facing you.
If the x-ray is taken posteriorly, it's taken from behind you, so you are seeing the back of the lungs. If it's taken anteriorly, it's as though someone else is facing you - left and right get reversed.
i dont really understand what you are saying but i thought it was posterior-anterior? (sp?)
POSTERO-ANTERIOR MEANS FRONT TO BACK. SO IT SHOULD BE VIEWED THAT WAY,IN WHICH CASE EVERYTHING WOULD SEAM FLIPPED. POSTERIOR IS YOUR FRONT AND YOUR ANTERIOR IS YOUR BACKSIDE.
A chest x-ray is taken PA so that the heart is closer to the cassette. The farther away the heart is from the cassette, the more magnified it appears on the final image, giving it a false impression of heart enlargement. This is the same reason that the lateral is taken with the left side closest to the cassette instead of the right. X-rays are viewed as though the person is facing you, so yes, it is flipped horizontally.Oh, and dekhandprincess? Posterior is the back and anterior is the front.
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