How Radiologic Technologists Can Get the Best Image
This blog is now focused on laboratory specialties. This article is here for your information only, as jobs are longer provided for any radiation technician specialties.
There are four main techniques that a radiologic technologist can employ to adjust x-rays to look their best. If radiologic technologists can master these, less retakes will be necessary, resulting in a lower radiation dose to the patient.
First, radiologic technologists should focus only on the diagnostically relevant areas of each x-ray. If the radiologic technologist focuses too broadly and does not narrow the focus the resulting image can look flat and not have enough contrast. An image that does not have enough contrast will not be useful when the physician is trying to make a diagnosis. Obtaining the right contrast level is usually done by radiologic technologists using a process called grey-scale remapping. Grey-scale mapping is done using a lookup table that maps raw pixel values to display values. Grey-scale mapping is done by entering the correct algorithms in for image processing.
The second technique radiologic technologists can use is called equalization. There was a study done showing that over 90% of images taken that radiologic technologists used equalization on were satisfactory to radiologists for diagnosis, while in contrast only 55% of images that weren’t equalized were satisfactory to radiologists for diagnosis. Equalizing an image is basically darkening areas that are too light and lightening areas that are too dark, while maintaining contrast.
The third way that radiologic technologists can make their images better is called sharpness restoration. When x-rays are taken there is often a blurring effect that is captured. Radiologic technologists can counteract this using certain algorithms.
Finally, radiologic technologists can ensure that default parameters are set in the way that the radiologist who will be looking at the image will prefer.
Learn more about hiring a radiologic technologist.
Source:
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Foos, David (2004, Novemebr) Tapping Power of Digital X-Ray Boosts Workflow. Diagnostic Imaging, 105-113
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