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I'm going to work in a pasta manufacturing company/factory. Egyptian law states that I must not catch any contagious diseases to be able to work there. I was asked to do a chest x-ray test.

The report of the test says:

  • Clear both lung fields and both C/P angles.
  • Normal cardio-thoracic ratio.

I wonder how can doctors diagnose any diseases from this test?! It's just a test on bones of the rib cage.

I'm also asked to do a stool test and I found this test is reasonable. For me, the only reason for the chest test is that the government wants to collect money from people by doing these tests.

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    Have you googled this? Chest Xrays don't just show bones. Diagnosis of lung diseases by CXR - just typing that yields scores of links...
    – DoctorWhom
    Apr 25, 2018 at 7:54

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A chest X-ray can detect changes in the lungs that occur in certain infections, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, tularemia, aspergillosis, histoplasmosis, plague, etc (American Journal of Rentgenology).

In most cases, additional tests, such as sputum and blood tests, are needed to confirm an exact diagnosis.

Here and here you can see which other lung abnormalities (lung cancer, edema, COPD..) a chest X-ray can detect.

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