Habib Clinic - X Rays

X-Rays | ECGs | Blood Test | Urine Test | Hepatitis B & C Tests

Services - X Rays
Overview X Ray, penetrating electromagnetic radiation, having a shorter wavelength than light, and produced by bombarding a target, usually made of tungsten, with high-speed electrons. X rays were discovered accidentally in 1895 by the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen while he was studying cathode rays in a high-voltage, gaseous-discharge tube. Despite the fact that the tube was encased in a black cardboard box, Roentgen noticed that a barium-platinocyanide screen, inadvertently lying nearby, emitted fluorescent light whenever the tube was in operation. After conducting further experiments, he determined that the fluorescence was caused by invisible radiation of a more penetrating nature than ultraviolet rays. He named the invisible radiation "X ray" because of its unknown nature. Subsequently, X rays were known also as Roentgen rays in his honor. Use in Medical Treatment X-ray photographs, called radiographs, and fluoroscopy are used extensively in medicine as diagnostic tools. In radiotherapy, X rays are used to treat certain diseases, notably cancer, by exposing tumors to X radiation. The use of radiographs for diagnostic purposes was inherent in the penetrating properties of X rays. Within a few years of their discovery, X rays were being used to locate foreign bodies, such as bullets, within the human body. With the development of improved X-ray techniques, minute differences in tissues were revealed by radiographs, and many pathological conditions could be diagnosed by means of X rays. X rays provided the most important single method of diagnosing tuberculosis when that disease was prevalent. Pictures of the lungs were easy to interpret because the air spaces are more transparent to X rays than the lung tissues. Various other cavities in the body can be filled artificially with contrasting media, either more transparent or more opaque to X rays than the surrounding tissue, so that a particular organ is brought more sharply into view. Barium sulfate, which is highly opaque to X rays, is used for the X-ray examination of the gastrointestinal tract. Certain opaque compounds are administered either by mouth or by injection into the bloodstream in order to examine the kidneys or the gallbladder. Such dyes can have serious side effects, however, and should be used only after careful consultation.

Services - X Rays

Overview

X Ray, penetrating electromagnetic radiation, having a shorter wavelength than light, and produced by bombarding a target, usually made of tungsten, with high-speed electrons. X rays were discovered accidentally in 1895 by the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen while he was studying cathode rays in a high-voltage, gaseous-discharge tube. Despite the fact that the tube was encased in a black cardboard box, Roentgen noticed that a barium-platinocyanide screen, inadvertently lying nearby, emitted fluorescent light whenever the tube was in operation. After conducting further experiments, he determined that the fluorescence was caused by invisible radiation of a more penetrating nature than ultraviolet rays. He named the invisible radiation "X ray" because of its unknown nature. Subsequently, X rays were known also as Roentgen rays in his honor.

Use in Medical Treatment

X-ray photographs, called radiographs, and fluoroscopy are used extensively in medicine as diagnostic tools. In radiotherapy, X rays are used to treat certain diseases, notably cancer, by exposing tumors to X radiation.

The use of radiographs for diagnostic purposes was inherent in the penetrating properties of X rays. Within a few years of their discovery, X rays were being used to locate foreign bodies, such as bullets, within the human body. With the development of improved X-ray techniques, minute differences in tissues were revealed by radiographs, and many pathological conditions could be diagnosed by means of X rays. X rays provided the most important single method of diagnosing tuberculosis when that disease was prevalent. Pictures of the lungs were easy to interpret because the air spaces are more transparent to X rays than the lung tissues.

Various other cavities in the body can be filled artificially with contrasting media, either more transparent or more opaque to X rays than the surrounding tissue, so that a particular organ is brought more sharply into view. Barium sulfate, which is highly opaque to X rays, is used for the X-ray examination of the gastrointestinal tract. Certain opaque compounds are administered either by mouth or by injection into the bloodstream in order to examine the kidneys or the gallbladder. Such dyes can have serious side effects, however, and should be used only after careful consultation.