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Breast shadow

Breast shadow (on a chest X-ray): A normal, soft-tissue density seen over the lower outer portions of the lungs on a frontal chest X-ray, created by the patient’s breast tissue lying in the path of the X-ray beam.
It often appears as a smooth, fairly symmetrical hazy opacity (sometimes with a curving lower border) and can be different on the two sides depending on breast size, position, or surgery.
The breast shadow is important because it can partly obscure lung markings and may mimic or hide abnormalities (such as a lower-lobe opacity), so radiologists interpret it in context and compare both sides and prior films when available.

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