Discoid Atelectasis, what might that be?

Tonight I had a patient I was assessing for out therapy driven protocols and was reading this person's xray and I noticed a word I have never came across before in my medical travels and it was describing a type of atelectasis:

Discoid Atelectasis which is also known as Plate Atelectasis.

Now being the good RT that I am, I had to do and look it up so I could do a proper assessment of this patient and what I found was interesting to me and I thought I would share it with anyone who might read this blog of mine.

Discoid or platelike atelectasis is a form of atelectasis which has s disc or platelike appearance on a xray which is linear or horizontal position. They often look like a CD or a dinner plate and thought to occur from shallow breathing or hypoventilation which can occur after a abdominal or thoracic surgery. It can be also seen in other conditions such as painful breathing, general anaesthesia, pulmonary embolism, ascites and diaphragmatic paralysis.

There is really no different type of treatment for this versus any other type of atelectasis because it is just a term to describe what is seen on the xray but overall it's still just atelectasis.

Really there is not to much alarming about this it's just something I came across and have never seen so I thought I would share it with everyone and hopefully if you come across this in a report you will now know that those radiologist are talking about because it seems they like to try and stump us, but because of the Internet things can be looked up quickly now.

If you didn't know, now you know ... Drive on RT's.