A method for detecting and localizing mucus plugs in digitized lung images, includes providing a digitized lung image volume comprising a plurality of intensities corresponding to a 3-dimensional grid of points, extracting a bronchial tree from said lung image, said bronchial tree comprising a plurality of branching airways terminating at terminal points, providing a model of a 2-dimensional cross section of an airway, selecting an extended point beyond a terminal point of an airway branch in a direction of said airway branch, obtaining a 2-dimensional cross section I of size m×n points from said lung image about said selected point, processing said 2D cross section I by calculating a local neighborhood function for each point in the cross section and forming a union of all local neighborhood functions, and calculating a correlation between processed 2D cross section and said airway model, wherein said correlation is indicative of the presence of a mucus plug within said airway.