Fluorography

Fluorography is a method of X-ray examination 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 small-format photographic film - usually 110x110 mm, 100x100 mm, or, less desirable, 70 x 70 mm.

The most important quality of fluorography, resulting from the low cost of small-format radiographs, is the ability to conduct mass screening (preventive) studies with its help. This determined the place of fluorography in X-ray diagnostics, and if we take it more broadly, in all of medicine.

In the most common method of fluorography, reduced X-ray images are obtained on a special X-ray machine - a fluorograph. This machine has a fluorescent screen and a mechanism for automatically moving the roll film. The image is photographed using a camera on a roll film, producing frames of the above dimensions.

In another method of fluorography, already mentioned at the beginning of this section, photography is performed on film of the same format, but from the URI screen (this method of image registration is sometimes called URI fluorography). The method is especially indicated for examination of the esophagus, stomach and intestines, as it provides a quick transition from transillumination to taking X-ray images, 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 that have passed through the object of study (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. The advantages of digital fluorography are obvious: low cost of obtaining a photo frame, reduced - 20 times - radiation load on the patient, in connection with which such fluorography is often called low-dose.

Fluorography as a method of X-ray examination of the chest organs developed as an integral part of a comprehensive program for the early detection of pulmonary tuberculosis. Naturally, other pulmonary diseases were also detected along the way, primarily oncological ones. The principle of fluorography. many opponents of its use. Thus, abroad they took a different path - the path of developing alternative methods for diagnosing tuberculosis, in particular, cytological examination of sputum. The disadvantages of fluorography as a mass screening study include a certain radiation load on the population of the country as a whole (not to be confused with the radiobiological effect on an individual: it is small and does not pose any danger to the health of the person being examined!), as well as the cumbersomeness and fairly high cost of fluorographic studies on a national scale as a whole.

And yet, despite a number of inherent shortcomings of fluorography, at present it is the main method of early detection of tuberculosis (and cancer) of the lungs. In accordance with the existing provisions and regulations, fluorography is not carried out universally, as it was before, but differentially, in a limited group of people from the high-risk group for the development of pulmonary diseases and taking into account local conditions, primarily the epidemiological situation for tuberculosis, but necessarily in people who have reached the age of 15. All people classified as the so-called decreed group (employees of medical institutions, preschool institutions and schools, catering, etc.) must undergo fluorography at least once a year.

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