Radiology

In ordinary German die Aufhellung is a brightening: a forecast promises zeitweise Aufhellungen after the rain, a mood lifts, a hairdresser lightens a colour. In a radiology report the same word names a patch where more radiation got through — bone that has thinned, air where tissue ought to be — and on a modern image that patch is dark. Its partner die Verschattung works the other way round: the shadow in the report is a white area on the monitor. Both words come from the fluoroscopy screen, which glowed where rays passed through and stayed dim behind dense tissue, and the vocabulary survived when film and monitors showed the picture the other way up. So when a report mentions eine Aufhellung im Knochen, look for something dark. These pages explain words and give no medical advice.