The most serious complications of many pulmonary diseases include the development of disinteg- rating caverns. The authors discuss examinations of disintegrating pulmonary processes by CT and the asset of the spiral technique of examination. They draw attention to problems of the differential diagnosis and assessment of criteria of the dignity of the process. They compare the character of findings in 10 etiologically confirmed observations of caverns in the pulmonary parenchyma examined by spiral CT. They demonstrate on individual patients that a similar CT can be caused by quite different pathological conditions.

        Key words: cavernous pulmonary lesion - abscess - fibrocavernous cavern - Jores cavern - computed tomography - spiral technique of examination