Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The plain chest radiograph, although useful in the assessment of acute asthma, mainly to exclude unsuspected pneumothorax, collapse or consolidation, 1 2 is unable to demonstrate more subtle changes within the lungs of asthmatic patients. The ability of high resolution computed tomography (HRCT), with a theoretical resolution of 100 m, to examine small structures within the chest is now being exploited in the investigation of asthma. Recent studies have focused on the visualisation of acute airway responses to bronchoconstrictor and bronchodilator stimuli as well as airway and lung parenchymal changes in chronic asthma.
Mclean et al. (1998) studied this question.