The
use of radiant energy to diagnosis and treat disease is known as radiology.
The x-ray that penetrates substances to create an image on film, perhaps of
a broken bone, is perhaps the most familiar medical use of radiation. Before
the discovery of x-ray in 1895, the only way to see inside the body was through
invasive techniques such as surgery. Today, radiation is used not only to produce
images of the interior of the body to diagnose illness and injury, but it is
also used in the treatment of diseases such as cancer.
Computer technology has greatly enhanced the field of radiology. X-ray can clearly reveal such dense objects such as bones, but not soft tissue. Now that computerized scanners can work with millions of messages from a single test, it is possible to view soft tissues and organs like the brain or heart. With computer-assisted tomography (CT or CAT), images of particular layers of the body are made from different angles. This is tremendously important in improving the diagnoses of some diseases. Imaging techniques do not always involve radiation. Examples of imaging equipment that do not use x-ray include ultrasound which uses sound waves and the magnetic resonance scanner (MRI) which uses radio waves.
Careers in radiological science include radiologists, who are physicians (MDs) who specialize in the use of radiation and non-radiation imaging equipment to diagnose and treat injuries and diseases. Others are radiologic technologists, radiologic assistants, nuclear medicine technologists, radiation therapy technologists, radiographers, radiation protection technicians, diagnostic medical sonographers, and dosimetrists.
