as a guess

Guesswork always strikes me as a very brave or foolhardy approach to medical translating :-) and IMHO "fein" refers to the quality of the changes seen, rather than the area they cover ...

... slight dystelectasis in the right lower lobe ...

"Dystelektase" appears in German texts occasionally, and you see "dystelectasis" in translation but I have yet to find "dystelectasis" used by an English native speaker ... atelectasis yes, but dystelectasis ...

@wolpertingerjack
LEO gives "acute" in the context of hearing, i.e. definition 3 here:
http://www.answers.com/acute
it's not relevant to your context

I wasn't aware that only people who know 100% the right answer should make contributions here.

Griffin, Raten ist nicht zielführend - ganz besonders wenig aber in Verträgen und medizinischen Texten, die mehr als andere Textarten auf Präzision und korrekte Fakten angewiesen sind. Im sprachlichen Bereich sind Vorschläge sinnvoll, weil sie vielleicht anderen auf die Sprünge helfen; bei Rechts- und Medizintexten sollte man nicht raten.

ok ok, I give in...sorry for making a guess and flagging it as such. I thought this forum was less formal than, say a translation bureau. I suppose I have to go away and think about what areas of language I might know about before contributing again.

Griffin, überleg mal - hier suchen Leute Hilfe, mit Raten ist ihnen nicht gedient, denn viele wissen es eben nicht oder nicht besser. Das hat einfach mit gesundem Menschenverstand zu tun. Fachvokabular muß man kennen oder nachschlagen können; bei rein sprachlichen Fragen ist Deine Hilfe sicher angebracht. Nicht gleich beleidigt sein ....

ok...I'll stay away from Fachvokabular, particularly in medical and legal contexts...you'll be pleased to know that I stayed very far away from "Dinglicher Zinssatz" yesterday. I guess my problem is that I enjoy translation very much, but have never had any training it in. So I today I might have learned to be more careful.

Enjoying translation and being able to help constructively are two different things. Please note that no one doubted your linguistic expertise: however, nobody can be an expert in every conceivable field.

thanks, I'll try to keep the distinction in mind

Für "lebenswichtige" Übersetzungen würde ich niemals auf LEO setzen!

Guesswork always strikes me as a very brave or foolhardy approach to medical translating

... atelectasis yes, but dystelectasis ...

Roche Lexikon Medizin:

Dys|telektase
verminderter Luftgehalt eines Lungenbereichs als Vorstufe einer Atelektase, eines Lungenkollapses.

Langenscheidt, Medical Dictionary:
dystelectasis (pulm): Dystelektase, die

guess who, Marianne said that it was used in German and that it is occasionally seen in translations from the German. What's your point? Noone said the word didn't exist. Nor did Marianne imply that it was synonymous to atelectasis.

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback.

Don't know how I missed the "Gehör" example for acute. Thanks for pointing that out, Marianne.

On a side note then, I've been translating several different CT and x-ray findings by different physicians for a clinical trial. I've seen both Dystelektase and Atelektase used. I'm not sure what you were suggesting when you noted that "Dystelektase" is less used. I pretty much have to use "dystelectasis" if the one is a preliminary stage of the other, don't I. Or should I refer to "dystelectasis" simply as "preliminary stages of atelectasis"?

So wie ich Mariannes Beitrag verstehe, sagt sie, dass ihrer Erfahrung nach im englischen Sprachgebrauch ihr dystelectasis * noch nicht begegnet ist.

Was nicht gleichzusetzen ist mit der Aussage, dass Wort würde nicht existieren. Es ging um den tatsächlichen Gebrauch.

* im Gegensatz zu a) atelectasis in EN und b) Dystelektase in DE

I'm with Marianne. "Dystelectasis" is not listed in my hard copy of Dorland's Illustrated Dictionary, nor in one online med. dict., Medline-plus. It would be understood, ("poorly inflated" as opposed to "not inflated"). I do not recall ever having seen "dystelectasis" in almost 38 years of being in medicine (I am, however, neither a radiologist or pulmonologist).