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Authors' reply

The Editor—Sir,

We would like to thank Dr Wright for showing interest in and commenting on our paper [1]. We agree that we could have used the term "collapse" instead of "atelectasis", and indeed that the former may not only be simpler but also "more correct". We are aware that atelectasis is derived from the Greek language, meaning imperfect expansion [2, 3]. Dr Wright states that the term atelectasis really means collapse that has been present since birth. Felson [4] preferred the term collapse to atelectasis in describing loss of volume, because the latter had other meanings such as airlessness.

On the other hand, Fraser et al [2] and Heitzman [3] use the term atelectasis, and state that the present day meaning of atelectasis is loss of volume. We believe that this concept is almost universally accepted.

In summary, we used the term atelectasis in our paper without implication of a congenital origin of collapse. We believe that the term atelectasis can be used synonymously or interchangeably with the term collapse. We would be more than happy to receive more opinions from the experts.

Yours etc.,

K Ashizawa and K Hayashi

Department of Radiology, Nagasaki University School of Medicine, 1-7-1 Sakamoto, Nagasaki 852-8501, Japan

Footnotes

See the original letter on page 874

Received for publication April 30, 2001. Accepted for publication May 11, 2001.

References

1. Ashizawa K, Hayashi K, Aso N, Minami K. Lobar atelectasis: diagnostic pitfalls on chest radiography. Br J Radiol 2001;74:89–97.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
2. Fraser RS, Müller NL, Colman N, Paré PD. Atelectasis. In: Fraser and Paré's Diagnosis of diseases of the chest (4th edn). Philadelphia, PA: WB Saunders Co., 1999:513–62.
3. Heitzman ER. The lung: radiologic–pathologic correlations (2nd edn). St Louis, MO, CV Mosby, 1984: 457–501.
4. Felson B. Chest roentgenology. Philadelphia, PA: WB Saunders Co., 1973:92–133.

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