Medical & biological engineering & computing
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Breath sounds heard with a stethoscope over homologous sites of both lungs in healthy subjects are presumed to have similar characteristics. Passively transmitted sounds introduced at the mouth, however, are known to lateralise, with right-over-left dominance in power at the anterior upper chest. ⋯ At the posterior lung base, breath sounds are louder on the left, with a trend to similar lateralisation in transmitted sounds. It is likely that the observed asymmetries are related to the effects of cardiovascular structures and airway geometry on sound generation and transmission.