Digital or Computed Radiography

The UF Veterinary Hospitals has Direct Digital Imaging and Computed Radiology.

How It Works

Digital or Computed Radiography uses a cassette system with an imaging plate that contains photostimulable (light-stimulated) storage phosphors. These phosphors detect and store energy from the x-rays that strike the cassette. When bones and other tissue are placed between the plate and the x-rays, they block the x-rays, allowing an image of those bones to be captured.

When using Computed Radiography, the cassette is run through a computer scanner that uses a scanning laser to release the energy from the plate in the form of light. The light is captured, recorded, and processed into an image by a computer. The imaging plate is then erased by fluorescent light in the scanner, and is ready to be used again.

With the direct digital radiography, the image is processed within the plate/cassette and is directly set to the computer for review.

The digitized image can be viewed and enhanced, allowing the interpreter to manipulate the radiograph’s contrast and brightness, zoom in, pan, and take measurements. The images are stored using specific criteria for medical images (called DICOM), which provide a secure file that is very difficult to alter.

Fluoroscopy uses similar equipment to radiography, however instead of making one image at a single moment in time, the patient can be examined in real-time. Fluoroscopy allows patients to be evaluated for dynamic tracheal disease, as well as cardiac and vascular diseases using angiographic techniques.

Return to UF Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging.

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