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Wheezing as a Respiratory Sound

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Breath Sounds

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Abstract

The auscultation of breathing sounds dates back to the years of Hippocrates and was revolutionized after the invention of the stethoscope by Läennec in 1816. Wheezing was amongst the five different types of respiratory sounds described by Läennec. His original description was “the whistling of little birds”. Interestingly, whereas the roentgenogram when discovered verified the accuracy of the stethoscopic findings in many cases, this was not the case for wheeze. Subsequently the value of wheezing as a clinical finding was confirmed by lung function studies, in particular spirometry. It was more a physics-based approach that allowed the understanding of how wheeze is produced and clinical meaning of the noise.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Children’s Respiratory and Allergy Unit, Third Department of Paediatrics, “Attikon” Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Grigorios Chatziparasidis & Kostas N. Priftis

  2. Imperial College, London, UK

    Andrew Bush

  3. National Heart and Lung Institute, London, UK

    Andrew Bush

  4. Royal Brompton Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

    Andrew Bush

Authors
  1. Grigorios Chatziparasidis
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  2. Kostas N. Priftis
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  3. Andrew Bush
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kostas N. Priftis .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Children’s Respiratory and Allergy Unit, Third Department of Paediatrics “Attikon” Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Kostas N. Priftis

  2. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Leontios J. Hadjileontiadis

  3. Division of Child Health, University of Western Australia, Perth Children’s Hospital, Perth, Australia

    Mark L. Everard

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Chatziparasidis, G., Priftis, K.N., Bush, A. (2018). Wheezing as a Respiratory Sound. In: Priftis, K., Hadjileontiadis, L., Everard, M. (eds) Breath Sounds. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71824-8_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71824-8_11

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