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Having Pneumonia. If Pneumonia Is In Right Lower Lobe Then Why There Is A Shadow In Upper Lobe Shown In Xray?

Posted on Thu, 8 Nov 2012

Question: My daughter is nineteen and she had a bad cold which turned into pneumonia. The chest x XXXXXXX showed pneumonia in her right lower lobe and also a shadow in her upper lobe. they tested her for tuberculosis and that came back negative. The radiologist said the shadow was probably just the pneumonia as well. We need to go back for another chest x XXXXXXX in a couple of weeks to make sure everything has cleared. My question is if she had the pneumonia in her right lower lobe why would there also be a shadow in her upper lobe? She feels feels much better now after her antibiotics but as a mother i am so worried.

Answered by Dr. Sudhir (56 minutes later)

Hello,

Thanks for the question.

It's not that pneumonia will limit itself to one lobe of lung. It is very often seen that multiple lobes are involved with normal lung in between these pneumonic patches.

So in her case both of these opacities are likely to be patches of pneumonia. Patches of pneumonia are often described as shadow or opacity. This doesn't alter course of treatment.

Follow up X-ray will help to know whether they resolve after treatment; if the fail to resolve after treatment, the possibility of tuberculosis needs to be reconsidered.

Hope this answers your question. Please ask if there are doubts.

Regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad