What kind of equipment does the hospital use to take pictures? Will there be radiation?

 What equipment is used in hospitals to take pictures? Hospital radiology exams usually include three types: DR (digital film machine, also known as “X-ray”), CT (computerized tomography), MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). For the general public, the collective term is “filming”, what is the difference between the three specific?

DR examination is also commonly known as X-ray, DR is on the basis of ordinary X-ray filming, the development of digital X-ray filming, a common understanding, is the advanced version of the traditional X-ray, but the essence is still similar, or the use of X-rays of the principle of penetrability. Although the examination area and ordinary X-ray film are the same, but the image resolution of DR is significantly higher than X-ray, and the radiation dose is also reduced very much.

DR is commonly used to take pictures of the chest and bones of the human body, as well as other parts of the body, such as the abdomen, teeth, and head. The use of a wider range of people, you can check all parts of the body, exposure can be obtained in a few seconds after the digital image, imaging speed, and inexpensive, greatly improving the efficiency of the work, to facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of clinically ill patients with serious illnesses and emergencies.

DR examination

Standing X-ray image is the preferred inspection content for determining the biological force line of human weight-bearing bones, the symmetrical structure of the smooth line and the scoliosis angle of the spine, etc. This is fundamentally different from CT and MRI prone imaging in clinical significance. In the clinical treatment of the spine and lower limbs, generally need to carry out corrective and joint replacement surgery, before and after the surgery, need to take standing weight-bearing X-ray film in order to analyze the condition, clear diagnosis and observation of the effect of treatment.

Conventional DR filming area is limited, the largest specification is only 43cm, but the average length of adult male full spine is 70-75cm, female 66-70cm, and the double lower limbs are longer. The 43cm*86cm large effective field of view of PLX8600 Dynamic DR can image the whole spine and both lower limbs at one time.

The principle of CT examination is that X-ray passes through the human body in layers, which is like slicing bread into thin slices, and each slice can be spread out for viewing. When experiencing trauma and suspecting injury to bone, CT can be chosen to observe hidden injuries or soft tissue injuries.

CT is suitable for head, chest, abdomen, pelvis, spine, limbs, bones, etc. Due to its special diagnostic value, it has been widely used in clinic, especially in the diagnosis of tumor. However, as CT equipment is more expensive, the examination cost will be high, and there is still a certain limit to the examination and diagnostic value of certain parts, especially qualitative diagnosis, so CT examination is not regarded as a routine diagnostic means in clinical practice. In addition, the radiation dose of CT is greater than that of DR, so women who are pregnant or preparing for pregnancy should not undergo CT examination.

CT examination

MRI, also known as magnetic resonance imaging, is a type of tomography, which utilizes the magnetic resonance phenomenon to obtain electromagnetic signals from the human body and reconstruct information about the body. The examination allows you to obtain cross-sectional, sagittal, and coronal images with high spatial resolution, making it the first choice for detection of the nervous system and spinal vertebral portion of the spine.

Whether it is DR or CT, due to the lack of resolution of some soft tissues, so the soft tissue disease detection becomes their shortcomings, while the strength of magnetic resonance is precisely the clear display of soft tissue disease, for the bladder, rectum, uterus and joint muscle examination is superior to CT. MRI is suitable for neurological lesions, cardiovascular system, thoracic lesions, systemic soft tissue lesions.

MRI Examination

Will there be radiation in the radiograph?

There have always been patients who refuse to have imaging tests because they are worried about radiation. As a matter of fact, radiation is everywhere, such as radiation from strong ultraviolet rays, computers, cell phones and so on, which are faced every day, and they do not cause any harm to the human body.

The commonly used unit of radiation dose is millisievert (mSv), and China stipulates that each radiologist should not be exposed to more than 20 mSv per year, within which it is relatively safe. Obviously, the person being examined is not taking any greater risk than the doctor. And medically speaking, the probability of the human body developing cancer generally increases significantly only when exposed to a radiation dose of 100 mSv or more. We usually come into contact with the means of examination, the radiation dose and this value gap is very large, for example, we often say that the film, that is, X-ray examination, it is very low radiation dose to the human body, only 0.1 mSv, equivalent to the natural radiation that human beings in the earth 10 days of life received. With this kind of data comparison, don’t you also think that radiation is far less scary than imagined?

The radiation doses of X-ray and CT examinations are also within the safe range. Therefore, when undergoing examination, the dose of radiation does not cause harm to the patient’s body, and there is no need to choose not to do the examination because of the presence of radiation and neglect your health.