airway Xray neck lateral

a lateral xray of neck is very often asked for the soft tissue shadows when one suspects adenoids, para or retropharyngeal abscess and or a space occupying lesion in neck including cysts and others.

It surely does depict spine very details but for for visualisation of dense one asks for xray AP with open mouth.

For better delineation of airways, the patinet is asked to keep mouth slightly open, and neck slighlt extended, as in this xray. Air gives contrast with soft tissue shadows making many pathologies obvious.

This normal airway lateral x ray depicts nasopharynx, tongue, mandible, glosoepiglottic recess, epiglottis and larungeal sca clearly. you can also see the body of hyoid bone. Ant convexities bulging in the airway will make u suspect about an abscess.