# X-ray radiography and fluoroscopy

Source: https://onco.cc/technologies/x-ray-radiography-fluoroscopy/  
OnCo record `x-ray-radiography-fluoroscopy` (Technology). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

The plain X-ray is the oldest and cheapest medical image: a single shadow picture of bone and lung. Fluoroscopy is the live-video version, used to steer needles, catheters and stents during cancer procedures.

## Summary

A radiography room has an X-ray tube on one side of the patient and a flat-panel digital detector on the other; a single exposure records how much each tissue blocked the beam. In cancer care the chest X-ray still finds many lung tumours by accident, the skeletal survey remains a fallback for myeloma bone disease where whole-body CT or MRI is not available, and mobile units image inpatients. Fluoroscopy runs the tube continuously at low current to give a live picture, and a C-arm or fixed angiography suite is the room where interventional radiologists perform chemoembolisation and radioembolisation of liver tumours, place ports and drains, treat vertebral fractures with cement and take image-guided biopsies.

Against CT, radiography is far cheaper, faster and lower in dose, but it projects a three-dimensional body onto one plane, so overlapping structures hide small tumours and it cannot stage disease. Modern angiography suites add cone-beam CT on the same C-arm so the operator can check a catheter position or an embolisation in three dimensions without moving the patient.

## Fields

- Kind: Technology
- Status: standard-of-care
- Last checked: 2026-09-17
- Tags: machines-wave
- Principle: X-rays from a tube pass through the body and are absorbed in proportion to tissue density and thickness; a digital detector records the transmitted pattern as a projection image, continuously in fluoroscopy.
- Since: 1896
- Strengths: Cheapest and most widely available imaging; Low radiation dose per image; Live guidance for interventional procedures
- Limitations: Overlapping structures hide small lesions; Cannot stage cancer or measure soft tissue; Fluoroscopy time adds dose to staff and patient

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiography
- Wikipedia: radiography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiography
- Wikipedia: fluoroscopy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoroscopy

## Connected records

- technologies: [CT (computed tomography)](https://onco.cc/technologies/ct/), [Low-dose CT lung screening](https://onco.cc/technologies/low-dose-ct-screening/), [Mammography & tomosynthesis](https://onco.cc/technologies/mammography/)
- cancers: [Hepatocellular carcinoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/hcc/), [Lung cancer (all types)](https://onco.cc/cancers/lung-cancer/), [Multiple myeloma](https://onco.cc/cancers/multiple-myeloma/), [Osteosarcoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/osteosarcoma/)
- fronts: [Imaging](https://onco.cc/fronts/imaging/)
- companies: [Canon Medical Systems](https://onco.cc/companies/canon-medical/), [FUJIFILM Healthcare](https://onco.cc/companies/fujifilm/), [GE HealthCare](https://onco.cc/companies/ge-healthcare/), [Philips](https://onco.cc/companies/philips/), [Shimadzu](https://onco.cc/companies/shimadzu/), [Siemens Healthineers](https://onco.cc/companies/siemens-healthineers/)

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