Everyone had to undergo roentgenography. This is a mandatory procedure, which even the most healthy person should pass no more than a couple of times a year. Officially employed people take X-rays as part of a medical check-up, and private medical workers and the unemployed are reminded about the procedure once a year by employees of medical institutions.
What is the difference between chest X-ray and fluorography?
Surely this question immediately arose and you. In fact, these two procedures, in fact, are one and the same. But only fluorography is considered an older method of diagnosing the organs of the chest. While radiography not only allows a more accurate result, but also less intensively irradiates the patient.
And yet, chest X-ray in most modern medical institutions (especially public ones) is not so often prescribed today, and the advantage is given to obsolete fluorography. The latter makes it possible to obtain only a general idea of the state of organs. And only if any suspicious changes are visible on the fluorographic image, the patient is assigned an X-ray. In order not to expose yourself to risk and to be sure of the result of the examination, it is best to immediately go to the medical institution where an X-ray room is equipped.
X-ray of the chest
In the picture taken during the survey radiography, the heart, respiratory tract, lungs, vessels, lymph nodes are clearly visible. With this procedure, you can detect a large number of diseases, including even lung cancer .
In most cases, chest x-rays are assigned for the following purposes:
- With the help of X-ray, you can identify the cause of a protracted cough or shortness of breath . Patients with chest pain are also often sent for x-rays.
- Radiography of the chest will help dot the i, if there are suspicions of a broken rib and damage to the lungs.
- Some infectious diseases, such as, for example, lung cancer, cystic fibrosis and pneumonia, are determined by this procedure.
- X-rays clearly demonstrate the problems of the cardiovascular system (if any).
Quite often cases when the radiography of chest organs allowed to determine foreign objects that somehow got into the body.
How is the preparation for radiography and interpretation of the results?
As such, there are no rules for preparing for an X-ray procedure. You can not expose yourself to radiation and do chest radiography only to pregnant women and young nursing mothers. Before an x-ray, do not stick to any diet. Immediately before the procedure will have to remove all the jewelry that can get into the area of exposure. And to make the shot successful, it will be necessary to hold your breath for a couple of minutes.
Today, digital chest X-ray is increasingly being performed. Thanks to the use of modern technologies, the picture is more clear and contrast.
After the procedure, the doctor must make the decoding of the picture. There is no reason to worry when the size and location of all organs are normal, there are no growths, and there are no foreign bodies in the chest.
The following factors are considered abnormalities in chest X-ray:
- increased size of the organs or presence of infection in them;
- the change in the size of the blood vessels should be alarming;
- deformation or fracture of the bones of the chest.
X-rays can determine the presence of wounds, tumors, edema. And all these factors are considered pathology.