Problems in the clinical and roentgenographic diagnosis of pneumonia in young children.

The difficulty of diagnosing pneumonia by chest x-ray in children less than 4 years of age was studied by comparing the chest roentgenograms of 34 healthy children with the chest roentgenograms of 34 children previously diagnosed as having pneumonia. Review of these films without knowledge of the previous interpretation and without clinical information disclosed variations regarding the roentgenographic confirmation of pneumonia in 24 percent of the cases and variations regarding the location of the lesion in about 50 percent of the cases.