[Indications of valvular pulmonary stenosis on plain chest films (author's transl)].

Plain chest films of 87 children aged 4-14 years with valvular pulmonary stenosis proved by cardiac catheterization and of an age matched control group of 92 healthy children were evaluated in a retrospective study. Up to 4 years the evaluation was impaired by the overlying thymus. The evidence of poststenotic dilatation of the pulmonary trunk and the left pulmonary artery branch together with a normal or increased left sided perihilar pulmonary vascularity is essential for the diagnosis of valvular pulmonary stenosis.

The size of the aortic arch: a suitable criterion for differentiating between congenital heart diseases with left-to-right shunt?

A retrospective study was carried out to determine whether aortic arch size can be regarded as a reliable criterion for differentiating between congenital left-to-right shunt defects. The PA and AP plain chest films of children of all age groups with ductus arteriosus persistens (DAP) (n = 91), atrial septal defect (ASD) (n = 86), ventricular septal defect (VSD) (n = 87) and a normal control group (n = 387) were used to measure the size of the aortic arch, and an aortic index (AI) was calculated from aortic arch size and the height of the eighth thoracic vertebral body. Three age classes were defined from the AI values of the control group, and the diagnostic groups in each age class were compared with each other.

[An analysis of the plain chest films of 109 children with atrial septal defect. The correlation between different radiological criteria and shunt size (author's transl)].

Radiograms of the chest (p.a.--and lateral projection) of 109 children with atrial septal defect taken before cardiac catheterisation have been evaluated under standardized principles; correlation between size of the left-to-right shunt and the radiographic changes has been performed.