Diagnostic Radiology

What types of diagnostic radiology are there?

Diagnostic radiology is actually the use of various imaging modalities to help in the diagnosis of disease. It is actually divided into multiple areas of specialty. Depending on what a doctor my suspect is the target area of concern for your aliment. Diagnostic radiology is a invaluable tool in finding things that would otherwise go unnoticed until it where to late, such as types of cancer.So lets cover a few modalities and there uses. There is Radiography which everyone commonly knows as a x-ray. A radio graph is a image created with x-rays to examine skeletal structures and soft tissue this is useful in things like broken or fractured bones.

A more in depth type of radiology is a CT scan which uses x-rays combined with computing algorithms in order to image tissues in your body. This is normally done in a axial plane but it is possible in other ways such as computer reconstruction. This give a much more defined image of soft tissue, arteries, and veins.Nuclear medicine is imaging involving administering a substance know as radionuclide after doing this all major parts of the body such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, gallbladder, and of course bones can be evaluated for specific conditions.

Nuclear medicine is also useful in evaluating physiological function as well as things like checking the growth of tumors. One other use for nuclear medicine is therapeutic administration of isotopes to deliver high doses of radiation to a specific area such as a tumor, or different glands.There is also a method that does not use radiation at all which is why it is used on pregnant women while all other types of radiology are avoided during that time. That method is sonography referred to as a sonogram or ultrasound. It is used to visualize soft tissue in real time this comes in handy in prenatal care for a mother and unborn child as there are no know negative effects, although the imaging quality is highly dependent on the ability or the operator of the sonography machine.

All these methods of diagnostic radiology are very effective tools for a health care provider in making treatment decisions of their patients. In conclusion radiology has come a long way since its conception saved countless lives since it was first put into use in the early 1900`s with its original discovery for medical purposes in 1887. Many people owe a thank you to Wilhelm Röntgen and Nikola Tesla for their discovery and application of it.