Fluoroscopy
Fluoroscopy is one of the oldest forms of medical imaging. It has been around almost since the discovery of x-rays. It has obviously gone through significant improvements since then but the basic principals are the same. The reason that it has remained in such wide spread use is that it is just so useful. With a fluoroscope doctors can see things that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do, particularly when it comes to seeing things moving inside the body.
Fluoroscopy is basically an x-ray that shows a continuous image. This image is displayed on a monitor so that it is for all intents and purposes an x-ray movie. This is done so that doctors can see movement during an x-ray. This allows them to diagnose a number of conditions that they wouldn't be able to diagnose from a static picture. The most common use would be for barium x-rays. This is when they have you drink a liquid that will show up on the fluoroscope so that they can watch it move through your gastrointestinal tract. This makes it very easy for the doctors to see where the problem is.
The other common use of fluoroscopy is to help them put in catheters. This mainly done during procedures like angioplasty where they wouldn't otherwise be able to see where the catheter needs to go. With something as delicate as working around the heart this would obviously not be possible. However using a fluoroscope to see what they are doing has opened up a whole new world of medical procedures that they wouldn't otherwise be able to perform. This has saved a great many people from having to endure open heart surgery.
Fluoroscopy is also widely used by orthopedic surgeons when they are repairing fractured bones. It saves them having to actually open the whole area up to see what they are doing when performing surgery. Studying the flow of blood is another common use of the fluoroscope. It allows doctors to watch how your blood is flowing so that they can spot any problems. By any measure the fluoroscope has been one of the most successful imaging techniques in modern medicine.
There are of course risks to fluoroscopy and these need to be assessed by your doctor to make sure that it is worth proceeding. The biggest risk is that of developing cancer as the result of exposure to the radiation of the x-ray. The actual risk of this happening is pretty small but it does exist. The far more likely occurrence is that you will suffer a burn as the result of the radiation. Either option is fairly unlikely so but it can happen so your doctor will want to limit your exposure. In almost all cases the value of fluoroscopy in treating medical problems will far outweigh the slight risks involved. However it is a good idea to keep the risks in mind.