Airways and Inhalational Lung Disease

Airways and inhalational diseases represent a significant portion of respiratory pathologies, with chronic respiratory diseases being the third leading cause of death globally in 2019. Computed tomography (CT), particularly high-resolution CT (HRCT), is the gold standard for diagnosing and assessing airway diseases. HRCT allows visualization of key patterns such as airway wall thickening, bronchiectasis, bronchiolitis, and mosaic perfusion. While chest radiography provides rapid preliminary assessment, especially in emergencies, it has lower sensitivity and specificity compared to CT due to its two-dimensional nature. HRCT is crucial for detecting inhalational lung diseases and diagnosing occupational lung diseases (OLD). This overview presents CT imaging appearances, etiology, pathophysiology, and pathology of various airways and inhalational diseases, including tracheal pathologies. It highlights key diagnostic features and considerations for radiologists, emphasizing the role of HRCT in accurately depicting disease processes in small airways and occasionally leading to specific diagnoses among clinically relevant possibilities.