General
X-ray
General X-ray - Surfers Paradise
Siemens YSIO Max
Gold Coast Radiology Scanner:
The Siemens YSIO Max is a high-end digital X-ray system which offers unique automation options as well as standardised workflows to provide consistently high image quality for all patients. Overall, a state of the art diagnostic X-ray system that provides diagnostic imaging accuracy at the lowest possible radiation dose to the patient.
General X-ray - Hope Island
Siemens AXIOM Multix
Gold Coast Radiology Scanner:
The Siemens AXIOM Multix covers the full spectrum of general purpose radiographic applications. It has a light and robust mobile Detector which enables fast and flexible utilisation combined with the table and wall stand, just as out of bucky exposures. The detector used makes for familiarity of conventional cassette handling with the advantages of digital imaging. The AXIOM Multix provides multiple features which reduce patient radiation dose significantly including interchangeoable copper filters which reduce skin dose, a high transparency table bucky grid which can be removed for pediatric examiniaiton to reduce dose, and the offset top collimators which help to reduce radiation dose to abdominal anatomy.
How it works
X-Rays have a much higher frequency than light, and as such a light source for example may be absorbed by your skin, whereas an X-Ray would usually pass through your skin and body. As the X-Rays pass through your body, the energy particles in them called photons are absorbed differently by different tissues in your body. The denser areas such as bone absorb more X-Rays compared to soft tissues in your body such as your heart and lungs, and as a consequence the amount of X-Rays that continue to pass through your body and exit the body is different.
By placing the body or organ in the X-Ray beam with a film behind the body, or a specialized detector behind the body, the X-Rays that are absorbed at different rates exit the body and "hit" the film or detector. The X-Ray photons that are captured by the film or detector create a gray scale image of the body or organ being X-Rayed. On an X-Ray image the parts of your body that are made up of denser material such as bone show up as white areas on an X-Ray, and the parts of your body that are made up of less dense materials such as your heart and lungs will show up as shades of gray. Air will show up as black.
X-Ray Advantages over Other Types of Scans:
X-Ray techniques used appropriately are relatively safe. Like any other radiation exposure, most doctors will limit the use of X-Rays and request them when they feel the diagnostic value outweighs the small risk associated with the radiation exposure. In most diagnostic X-Ray procedures, the amount of radiation dose is relatively small, with a person possibly being exposed to higher levels or radiation during an air plane flight.
The benefits of X-Rays are that almost any part of the body can be imaged, and the availability of X-Rays to the general public is far greater than say CT or MRI scans. X-Rays are also far more cost effective when compared to other imaging modalities such as CT or MRI.