Medical Scanning & Medical Imaging
Medical imaging may well be the greatest advance in all of modern medicine. There have been a number of new techniques created over the years and this has given doctors a greatly increased ability to diagnose diseases. Because of the improvements that have been made in medical scanning diseases are now diagnosed much earlier than they were in the past. This has greatly reduced the impact of disease since the early it is detected the better the results usually are. More improvements look likely in the future as the technology continues to improve allowing for even earlier detection.
Medical imaging of course began with the x-ray and this is still one of the most common techniques. X-rays are great for looking at bones but they do have some pretty serious limitations. There have however been some major improvements in x-rays over the years and techniques like fluoroscopy and tomography have taken x-rays to the next level. These techniques allow doctors to see not only the bones but all of the tissue. They also allow him to see the motion of body parts, greatly increasing the ability to diagnose problems.
For all the great things that x-rays have provided there are some issues that need to be considered when using x-rays in medical research. The biggest problem with them is that they do use radiation. That means that there is a small danger that the patient may be injured as the result of the radiation. In particular there is a very small risk of developing cancer. That means that doctors have to make decisions about whether or not the benefits of an x-ray are worth the risks. In most cases they are but there may be times when an x-ray is not a good idea. When this happens other techniques will likely be necessary.
Possibly the biggest advance in modern medical imaging has been the development of the MRI. Magnetic resonance imaging uses a giant magnet and radio waves to see tissue inside the body. This offers a number of advantages. The biggest is that you get a very clear and very detailed cross section image. The other big benefit is that there is no radiation used. That means that it can normally be used without having to consider the risks involved. For all of the great benefits of MRI it is hardly the end of the road of development in this field. Photoacoustic imaging is very much the cutting edge right now. It uses lasers to create heat that causes the tissue of your body to create a sound wave that produces an image on the detector. This produces a very clear image and it does it without exposing the patient to radiation. The only downside with all of this new imaging technology is that the cost makes it hard for hospitals to afford all of the equipment that they need.