oldgraymare

My husband (age 71) had a value replace two years ago.  He has been doing great, other than the fact he doesn't have a lot of energy, but does play golf a couple times a week using a golf cart. He had been a smoker for years. The lungs are affected.  He had an x-ray this past week with the results being "increased soft tissue density" and the doctors want him to have another x-ray in four months.  Could please tell me what this all means?

[Cleveland Clinic]

Soft tissue density may mean many things on a chest xray.  the most concerning would be a mass or a tumor.  I think your doctor is concerned because of the long history of smoking.  Repeating the xray in a few months is done to see if the density continues to enlarge.  Another thing that could be done is a CT scan.  That would not only look at the tissue density, but also characterize it better and look to see if other structures or lymph nodes are involved.