This website is intended to use clinical cases and their relevant imaging studies to illustrate and emphasize some of the topics in Histology, Physiology and Biochemistry that you have been studying in your integrated PrISM course at BUSM. There will be an interactive classroom discussion of these cases and others, which you will find more useful if you have reviewed the cases ahead of time. The entire set of cases for one classroom session should take you less than 45 minutes to review.

This set of cases covers topics related to the respiratory system, including the following concepts:

- causes of increased and decreased lung volume, and how this appears on chest radiography and CT, with relationship to PFTs

- contribution of the phrenic nerve to breathing, how phrenic nerve problems appear on chest radiography and how loss of phrenic nerve function affects PFTs

- importance of surfactant to normal lung function, and how rapid expansion of a chronically collapsed region of lung can lead to capillary leak and edema

- effects of edema fluid and other causes of abnormality of the lung interstitium, including appearance on chest radiography and CT and expected effects on PFTs