. Atlas of Chest Sonography. New York, Springer, 2003.

The diagnostic potential of sonography in the clarification of pleural and lung diseases has long been underestimated. The ultrasound beam is fully reflect-ed by the bony thorax and is largely obliterated by the ventilated lung. Such adverse conditions for the ultrasound beam have given rise to, and nurtured, the unjustified prejudice that sonography is of little value in this region. Pleural effusion alone has long been a domain of ultrasonographic diagnosis. However, A-scans performed as early as the 1960s showed that peripheral lung consolidations of various origins cause a pathological transmission of the ultrasound beam, which also serves as a key to ultrasonographic imaging of peripheral lung diseases. The past 15 years have witnessed a large number of original papers that systematically show the potential uses as well as limitations of chest sonography. After having published two monographs (1992, 1996), I considered the time ripe for a book produced by several authors, designed as a pictorial atlas, showing ultrasonography of the lung and the pleura in a compact yet comprehensive manner.