Question: Do you ever see a really disgusting lung that just makes you feel sick to the stomach

anon answered on 15 Jun 2010:

Have you seen those nasty pictures from the cigarette packets (of course not ’cause you wouldn’t smoke)? Well I’ve seen it first-hand and it is properly bogging. It’s amazing to me that the person who owned the lungs was still able to be alive. Some people whose lungs have been destroyed by cigarettes can’t walk around anymore and have to use oxygen 24hrs a day. They risk setting themselves on fire because their cigarettes burn better near the high concentration oxygen but they still smoke (there’s not much left to them by that point). Most often we look at lungs with the use of CT scanners (often called CAT scans). This lets you see the lungs as if you had cut the person in half from their breast bone to their spine in lots of slices and amazing detail. We can make most diagnoses this way. (obviously if you actually cut someone in half that way it could get extremely messy. Definitely don’t try this at home)

http://www.medbc.com/annals/review/vol_19/num_2/text/vol19n2p99.asp