Postmortem evaluation of the use of diaphragmatic excursus in assessment of pulmonary emphysema in coal miners

In a series of 89 subjects (all coal miners or ex-coal miners) a high order of correlation has been found between diaphragmatic excursus measured within five years of death and the necropsy assessment of emphysema in the lungs. In the absence of other common factors that reduce the range of movement of the diaphragm, measurements of diaphragmatic excursus provide a statistical prediction of the severity of emphysema. The individual variance, however, is such that this assessment should be used only as part of a range of clinicoradiological, physiological, and electrocardiographic indicators of emphysema severity.