Radiology Fundamentals Study Guide: 72 Flashcards on X-ray, CT, MRI, Ultrasound and Nuclear Medicine
Learn radiology fundamentals with 72 flashcards: ionizing vs non-ionizing modalities, CT indications, MRI contraindications, tracers, SPECT, PET/CT and IR.
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Master Modality Choice in MSK and Neuro Radiology: 37 Flashcards on MRI, CT, DXA and PET
Deck HW5463 decoded: when to choose MRI, CT, ultrasound, DXA, bone scan or PET for brain, spine and joints, with 8 real cards and two study fixes.
Radiology is a vocabulary problem before it is an interpretation problem. Each modality has its own physics, its own contraindications and its own short list of conditions it is the test of choice for — and exams test exactly those discriminations. Flashcards suit this perfectly: the knowledge is factual, paired and endlessly confusable.
Study this deck: Radiology Fundamentals & Chest/Abdominal Imaging
1 / 10Radiology
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
The Flip It deck Radiology Fundamentals and Chest/Abdominal Imaging (WU9199) holds 72 cards that walk through every imaging modality from plain film to PET/MRI fusion.
The 72 cards in one sweep
X-ray and radiography: how transmission images form, the radiograph and its Roentgen origin, digital radiography sensors, the conditions plain films still answer (arthritis, pneumonia, bone tumours, fractures, congenital skeletal anomalies, kidney stones), low-energy applications — mammography and DXA — plus fluoroscopy and the two radiocontrast agents, barium sulfate and iodine. CT: axial acquisition with coronal and sagittal reconstruction, contrast resolution versus the spatial resolution of plain film, spiral multidetector scanners at 16/64/254 detectors, and the emergency list CT owns. Ultrasound: real-time soft tissue imaging, the three quality limiters, obstetric safety, colour-flow Doppler, carotid stenosis, biopsy and thoracentesis guidance, and the portable units that displaced peritoneal lavage in trauma bays. MRI: proton alignment and radio signal disturbance, best-in-class soft tissue contrast, any-plane imaging, brain/spine/musculoskeletal strengths, the noise-and-claustrophobia problem, and the implant contraindications. Nuclear medicine: radiopharmaceuticals, technetium-99m and the full tracer list, gamma camera versus PET scanner, SPECT, 18F-FDG, PET/CT and PET/MRI fusion. Practice: interventional radiology, its training pathway, and teleradiology.
Cards straight from the deck
| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| Difference between imaging modalities that use ionizing radiation versus those that do not | CT, fluoroscopy and nuclear medicine use ionizing radiation; ultrasonography and MRI do not |
| What urgent and emergent conditions is CT the test of choice for? | Cerebral hemorrhage, pulmonary embolism, aortic dissection, appendicitis, diverticulitis, obstructing kidney stones |
| Advantages of CT over plain radiography | Higher contrast resolution (subtler attenuation differences); radiographs keep higher spatial resolution |
| Major advantage of MRI over other modalities | Best soft tissue contrast of all modalities, in axial, coronal, sagittal and oblique planes |
| What conditions contraindicate MRI use? | Pacemakers, cochlear implants, some medication pumps, certain aneurysm clips, metal fragments in eyes |
| What percentage of patients experience claustrophobia severe enough to terminate MRI? | Up to 5% |
| Most commonly used nuclear medicine tracer | Technetium-99m |
| Most common radioactive substance used in PET scanning | 18F-FDG, which concentrates in metabolically active tissue such as cancer |
| Two radiocontrast agents commonly used | Barium sulfate orally or rectally for the GI tract; iodine by various routes |
| SPECT | Single-photon emission computed tomography — nuclear medicine data displayed as axial, coronal and sagittal slices |
Two study angles specific to this deck
Build a modality matrix, not a card pile. Draw five columns — radiography, CT, ultrasound, MRI, nuclear medicine — and four rows: ionizing radiation yes/no, best tissue target, key limitation, signature indication. Almost every card in the deck fills one cell. Once the matrix is memorised, distractor answers on an exam collapse fast, because a wrong option usually violates one cell.
Drill the duplicate pairs deliberately. The deck deliberately asks several facts twice with different phrasings (CT acquisition plane, MRI contraindications, ultrasound quality limiters, the tracer list). Treat those repeats as a free self-test: if the second phrasing slows you down, the fact is recognised rather than recalled, and it needs another pass.
Open Flip It, find deck code WU9199 in the library, and study by modality block rather than shuffling all 72 cards at once.
Related: Common Diseases and Renal and Respiratory Physiology.
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