What are monophonic and polyphonic CALs?
CALs that can be compared to either a solo singer (monophonic wheezes) or a polyphonic choir.
Monophonic wheezes consist of single or multiple notes starting and ending at different times. A good
example is the rhonchus produced by a tumor almost completely occluding a bronchus.
Polyphonic wheezes contain instead several notes, all starting and ending at the same time, like a chord.
These can occur in healthy people at the end of a forceful exhalation, but are usually more typical of asthma, where narrowing of multiple airways produces a real polyphonic choir: the so-called “concertus asthmaticus.” Because fluttering of large airway walls is diffuse in asthma, CALs occur
throughout the lung fields
CALs that can be compared to either a solo singer (monophonic wheezes) or a polyphonic choir.
Monophonic wheezes consist of single or multiple notes starting and ending at different times. A good
example is the rhonchus produced by a tumor almost completely occluding a bronchus.
Polyphonic wheezes contain instead several notes, all starting and ending at the same time, like a chord.
These can occur in healthy people at the end of a forceful exhalation, but are usually more typical of asthma, where narrowing of multiple airways produces a real polyphonic choir: the so-called “concertus asthmaticus.” Because fluttering of large airway walls is diffuse in asthma, CALs occur
throughout the lung fields