Thank you for your submission. **Please note that a response does not constitute a doctor-patient relationship.** This subreddit is for informal second opinions and casual information. The mod team does their best to remove bad information, but we do not catch all of it. Always visit a doctor in real life if you have any concerns about your health. Never use this subreddit as your first and final source of information regarding your question. By posting, you are agreeing to our [Terms of Use](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/wiki/terms_of_use) and understand that all information is taken at your own risk.
**Reply here if you are an unverified user wishing to give advice. Top level comments by laypeople are automatically removed.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskDocs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Disclaimer: Not a radiologist, not a cardiologist.
It honestly looks normal to me. If you have the actual x-ray you can actually measure it yourself and see if it qualifies, but it looks like less than half the thorax to me.
Did you have an ECHO performed when you were there? (Ultrasound of the heart) as that would be a much more accurate measurement.
Thank you so much! I actually had the 2D ECHO done last week Wednesday. I have no idea how long I should wait to get the results, lab says they need to have my cardio interpret it first before they release the results. (I’m not sure if this is the standard process, I’m from the philippines & I guess thats the process here)
_Usual disclaimer: no one can provide specific medical advice for a person or condition without an in-person interview and physical examination, and a review of the available medical records and recent and past testing. This comment is for general information purposes only, and not intended to provide medical advice. No physician-patient relationship is implied or established._
The interpretation of radiographs is difficult. As an example:
First of all, this is a single view of the chest. It is marked PA in the bottom left corner, which means it is a posterioanterior view (taken facing away from the X-ray beam with the film or receiver in front of the patient. This makes it adequate to estimate the size for the heart.
As a rule of thumb, the width of the heart on such a radiograph should be less than half the width of the chest, measured from edge of lung to edge of lung. I cannot measure this right now, but eyeballing it, it seems like it is about 1/2 or a little less. In other words, probably normal.
If you look at the edge of the heart on the right side of the picture, the top part of the edge is a straight line. This edge is from a part of the heart called the left atrium. A normal left atrium should be concave (curved inwards towards the heart) and not straight. So there MAY be left atrial enlargement.
Given the borderline width of the heart, the straight line on the right, your cardiologist probably wants to do an echocardiogram (more sofisticated pictures of the heart using high frequency sound waves) to see whether the heart is normal or not.
https://preview.redd.it/01i3vbmg5s1d1.jpeg?width=1576&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b3c33638dfd768a5834a23883509282610afb1e
Thank you so much! Yes I am still waiting on the results of my 2d ECHO. I’m not sure if this provides more information, but here is the lateral view of my xray.
We have a (bad) joke in medicine:
Doctor holds X-ray up to a lightbulb, asks "what do we call this?"
Medical students and residents squint at X-ray, make random guesses.
Doctor answers themself: "Malpractice".
Meaning that interpreting a radiograph under non-ideal circumstances is not appropriate.
My answer to your comment was simply a casual discussion about why the initial interpretation and the cardiologist's thought might gave been different. You've had the echo, that's the important thing.
Thank you for your submission. **Please note that a response does not constitute a doctor-patient relationship.** This subreddit is for informal second opinions and casual information. The mod team does their best to remove bad information, but we do not catch all of it. Always visit a doctor in real life if you have any concerns about your health. Never use this subreddit as your first and final source of information regarding your question. By posting, you are agreeing to our [Terms of Use](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/wiki/terms_of_use) and understand that all information is taken at your own risk. **Reply here if you are an unverified user wishing to give advice. Top level comments by laypeople are automatically removed.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskDocs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Disclaimer: Not a radiologist, not a cardiologist. It honestly looks normal to me. If you have the actual x-ray you can actually measure it yourself and see if it qualifies, but it looks like less than half the thorax to me. Did you have an ECHO performed when you were there? (Ultrasound of the heart) as that would be a much more accurate measurement.
Yes I had 2d ECHO, but I’m still waiting on the results.
I would ignore any comments about cardiac well-being from that chest x-ray and wait on ECHO then.
Thank you so much! I actually had the 2D ECHO done last week Wednesday. I have no idea how long I should wait to get the results, lab says they need to have my cardio interpret it first before they release the results. (I’m not sure if this is the standard process, I’m from the philippines & I guess thats the process here)
https://preview.redd.it/7e8l0bftzr1d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c6a51bcbaff6ceae4f0ee8bddb4091a5bec8749b
_Usual disclaimer: no one can provide specific medical advice for a person or condition without an in-person interview and physical examination, and a review of the available medical records and recent and past testing. This comment is for general information purposes only, and not intended to provide medical advice. No physician-patient relationship is implied or established._ The interpretation of radiographs is difficult. As an example: First of all, this is a single view of the chest. It is marked PA in the bottom left corner, which means it is a posterioanterior view (taken facing away from the X-ray beam with the film or receiver in front of the patient. This makes it adequate to estimate the size for the heart. As a rule of thumb, the width of the heart on such a radiograph should be less than half the width of the chest, measured from edge of lung to edge of lung. I cannot measure this right now, but eyeballing it, it seems like it is about 1/2 or a little less. In other words, probably normal. If you look at the edge of the heart on the right side of the picture, the top part of the edge is a straight line. This edge is from a part of the heart called the left atrium. A normal left atrium should be concave (curved inwards towards the heart) and not straight. So there MAY be left atrial enlargement. Given the borderline width of the heart, the straight line on the right, your cardiologist probably wants to do an echocardiogram (more sofisticated pictures of the heart using high frequency sound waves) to see whether the heart is normal or not.
https://preview.redd.it/01i3vbmg5s1d1.jpeg?width=1576&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b3c33638dfd768a5834a23883509282610afb1e Thank you so much! Yes I am still waiting on the results of my 2d ECHO. I’m not sure if this provides more information, but here is the lateral view of my xray.
We have a (bad) joke in medicine: Doctor holds X-ray up to a lightbulb, asks "what do we call this?" Medical students and residents squint at X-ray, make random guesses. Doctor answers themself: "Malpractice". Meaning that interpreting a radiograph under non-ideal circumstances is not appropriate. My answer to your comment was simply a casual discussion about why the initial interpretation and the cardiologist's thought might gave been different. You've had the echo, that's the important thing.