I Remember when… Radiographs took such a long time to complete. This was because of the developing time and the time to retake them, sometimes repeatedly, to get usable pictures.
Taking Radiographs
OMG the problems we would have with the old X-ray systems and the big old X-ray films. You’ve seen the TV shows where the doctor slipped a big black X-ray film into a clip over a “viewing box” and revealed what was wrong! All very dramatic.
The Skinny on X-rays
The truth was that some poor medical technician probably had to take 3 or 4 “shots” to get the right position with the best settings and each time they took a series of shots they had to take the film (inside a “cassette” like a thin lined box to prevent light from destroying the image) to a dark room (probably a closet), remove the film from the cassette, hang the film on an aluminum hanger with sharp clips, and then dunk it in a big square tank with 3 sections. One section had developing fluid, the next had water to rinse the film, and the third section had liquid “fix” to prevent the picture from being lost when exposed to light. There were specific times for each section of the tank, but it could vary, so it was part art, part science. Developing time depended on the temperature, how fresh the developer was, the settings for the particular view, and the type of film used. If the picture wasn’t a good quality, it had to be done all over again from the start. The films then had to dry before being put into paper envelopes and then into storage. And in a pile those films were heavy!
Things Got Better
An intermediate advancement was automated developing. We got rid of the tanks, but still had a dark room with a machine on a countertop. The X-ray film was removed from the cassette again manually, and threaded into one side of the machine. The developer, water, and fix solutions were present in some storage containers in the machine, and the X-ray was exposed to each in turn, then put through a drying section to come out the other end ready to be viewed. It was pretty cool, and worked fairly well most of the time.
Fewer X-ray films had to be repeated because of developing errors. This was important because the more X-ray pictures we took, the more we were exposing ourselves and the pets to a cumulative health hazard. X-ray exposure to ourselves was (and still is) monitored by a sensor on our protective clothing. We wear lead gowns, lead gloves and protective eyewear, but holding the pet means we will be close to the source of the X-rays.
Nowadays Radiographs are Digital
That means we enter the pet’s dimensions onto a computer, along with the position and view that we want, click the button, and the X-ray picture shows up on the computer screen! This saves a good 20 minutes or more of developing time, and the views rarely need repeating because of poor technique. These pictures are stored on-line for many years.
Then There’s X-ray Interpretation
If we wanted a radiologist to give us an opinion on what we were seeing the old films had to be mailed out to the expert. Eventually with smart phones we started to take pictures of the X-ray film and send that by email to the radiologist. I never got a good picture doing that, though. Now, besides instantaneous image acquisition, we can just as quickly send the views online to a board-certified veterinary radiologist. That’s a very smart person. An answer could come back in 24 hours or less.
More advanced imaging such as MRI or CT scans are becoming more common, but still not readily available in a general practice.
Getting any Good Picture Depends on More than Just the Camera Technology
The pet’s positioning for an X-ray requires finesse. Each X-ray view has a standard positioning that allows the veterinarian to compare the anatomy of your pet to a normal reference. No-one wants to struggle with a pet to make it assume that position. Potentially, there could be an injury to staff or the pet. Even though that doesn’t happen regularly, we are aware of the risk.
That brings us to the improvements in sedation and anesthesia that have taken place in the last 50 years for our next article.