Fluorography

Fluorography is an X-ray method that involves photographing an image from a fluorescent X-ray screen (which is used more often), an electron-optical converter screen or systems designed for subsequent digitization of images onto a small format film - usually 110x110 mm, 100x100 mm or, , 70 x 70 mm.

The most important quality of X-rays, resulting from the low cost of small-format X-rays, is the ability to carry out massive testing (preventive) studies with its help. This determined the place of fluorography in X-ray diagnostics, and if we take it more widely, then in all medicine.

In the most common method of fluorography, reduced X-rays are obtained on a special X-ray machine - a fluorograph. In this apparatus there is a fluorescent screen and a mechanism for automatically moving the roll film. Photographing of the image is carried out by means of the camera on a roll tape with reception of the frames of the sizes specified above.

In another method of fluorography, already mentioned at the beginning of this section, photography is produced on a film of the same format, but from the URI screen (this method of image recording is sometimes called URI-fluorography). The technique is especially indicated in the study of the esophagus, stomach and intestines, since it provides a rapid transition from X-ray to X-ray photography, and in large series.

A step forward was the development of digital fluorography. In a digital fluorograph, unlike screen-film technology (with or without URI), the energy of X-ray photons passed through the object of investigation (the human body) is perceived by one of the systems for digitizing the image (as in digital radiography). Then, using a laser printer, an image is obtained on ordinary writing paper. Advantages of digital fluorography are obvious: low cost of obtaining a photocamera, reduced - 20 times - the radiation load on the patient, which is why such a fluorography is often called a low-dose.

Fluorography as a method of X-ray examination of the chest cavity has developed as an integral part of the comprehensive program for the early detection of pulmonary tuberculosis. Naturally, other lung diseases, in the first place oncological, were discovered in passing. Principle of fluorography. Many opponents of its use. So, abroad went on a different path - the development of alternative methods of diagnosing tuberculosis, in particular, cytological examination of sputum. The disadvantages of fluorography as a mass screening test include a certain radiation load on the population of the country as a whole (not to be confused with the radiobiological impact on the individual: it is small and there is no danger to the health of the examinee!), As well as the cumbersome and rather high cost of fluorography in the scale of the country as a whole.

And yet, despite a number of disadvantages inherent in fluorography, it is currently the main method of early recognition of tuberculosis (and also cancer) in the lungs. In accordance with the existing regulations and regulations, fluorography is not performed as a whole, as before, but differentially, in a limited group of people at high risk of developing pulmonary diseases and taking into account local conditions, especially the epidemiological situation of tuberculosis, but necessarily among those who have reached 15 years of age. All persons referred to the so-called decreed group (employees of medical institutions, children's pre-school institutions and schools, public catering, etc.), fluorography is mandatory at least once a year.

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