suegabriel
Posts:4

Are these four terms simply different ways of describing the same finding on CT or do they refer to different conditions?
Airspace opacities
Parenchymal opacities
Infiltrates
Fibrotic scarring

Thanks.

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Reply # - July 7, 2013, 07:46 PM

Dr West
Posts: 4735

The first 3 are really essentially synonymous, "infiltrates" perhaps implying a larger area than an "opacity", which may be quite small or large. Fibrotic scarring is a process that could lead to the appearance of an opacity, but that's a more specific explanation of an underlying cause (what you'd see at a microscopic level) vs. the first 3 terms, which describe the appearance of a characteristic on imaging like a chest CT.

-Dr. West

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