Bruno Hochhegger, Gustavo Pontes de Meireles, Klaus Irion,
Gláucia Zanetti, Eduardo Garcia, José Moreira, Edson Marchiori
In the elderly (conventionally defined as individuals 60 years of age), it is often difficult to establish what normality is, because of the numerous anatomical and physiological modifications that occur during the aging process. As a result, the greatest challenge is to differentiate between the normal aging process and the onset of disease. Healthy elderly people commonly present borderline findings on chest imaging. We systematically reviewed the medical literature on the subject, covering the period between 1950 and 2011, including articles in Portuguese, English, French, Italian, and Spanish. We searched the PubMed, LILACS, and SciELO databases, using the search terms "age", "aging", "lung", "thorax", "chest", "X-ray", "radiography", "pulmonary", and "computed tomography"-as well as their corresponding translations-in various combinations. We included only original or review articles on aging-related chest imaging findings. In broad terms, aging results in physiological modifications that must be recognized so as not to be erroneously interpreted as pathological.
Keywords: Aging; Thorax; Lung; Diagnostic imaging.