What’s the difference between MRI, CT, US, CAT, XRAY, etc?

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I have been in the medical field for over 5 years now and I still can’t get the hang of the following scans and what is each one used for. Like, I KNOW what they do but they’re all the same to me. What is an MRI, CT, Ultrasound, X-Ray, etc. etc. and what makes them different for their specific purposes? At work, I see sometimes radiological facilities want Mammograms with an US and the report says the same thing or sometimes insurance companies want an X-Ray to be done before covering an MRI but no sign of broken bone. I’m just curious lol

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Anonymous 0 Comments

They use different forms of energy to look at the body, different parts of the body and at different definition, and some with more or less dangerous forms of energy.

Like, xray, can only see hard o texts, and only a 2d image. It is also low danger, and extremely cheep.

Mri, looks at soft body in great detail, and takes many many pics of slices to construct and image. It is no danger, takes a while and is very expensive.

CT, is just lots of xrays for form a better picture ? Maybe from all angles. Moderate danger (lots of xrays) moderate expensive.

Ultrasound, no danger, uses sound waves, looks at soft bodies in motion real time, low definition. Cheep.

Pet scans do something with very dangerous radiation to image stuff. Very Expensive

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