Pain on the right upper abdomen is commonly caused by your gallbladder problem but it’s not always causes because liver disease, pancreas, right diaphragm, right lower chest area and intestinal tract matter are also the other root problems.

Some patients are advised to remove all materials in the gastrointestinal tract or fasting about 6 hours before examination to get the maximum and optimum result. This is the preparation purpose of x-ray and also for ultrasound. Superposition with those materials would disturb the quality of result images by both kinds of diagnostic tools that I mentioned above.

In this moment, I would like to explain about Radiologic examination techniques how to check your gallbladder appropriately. These tests are also can see the biliary tract that it’s also important to be confirmed including Cholecystitis.

Below are the Radiologic Techniques which generally used for Gall Bladder Problems:

1. Plain Abdomen X-ray

This position is clear enough to detect gallbladder’s stones in your right abdomen region if it’s clean without fecal mass existence. The liver projection can be seen also in this projection.
We call it Plain Abdomen x-ray because patient has no preparation to do examination before like injecting contrast media, barium meal and so on. Abdominal x-ray is also for another functions.

2. Oral Cholecystograms

Contrast media is used with this technique like omnipaque, telepaque, etc. The compound that used for oral is must be safe and water soluble and well- absorbed by gastrointestinal tract. The patient should be informed first before examination about the procedure, radiation protection, negative impact, and feeling after taking orally and so on.
Contrast media will be absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract and then delivered to the liver. The presence of glucunidase would be converted to a water soluble compound and secreted by the bile. If the your gall bladder infected/ inflamed or suffered from another pathology, the contrast media is absorbed from gall bladder. The concentration in the gall bladder will be visualized by x-ray examination.

3. Intravenous Cholangiography

In this test, contrast media is used as an agent with the safe ways. Radiographer or X-ray Technician should be wise using this agent because there are some normal reactions such as vomiting, nausea, hypotension or sometimes urticaria. For adult patient with 20ml in dosage

Due to this test have some negative effects for the patients, Anesthetist is advised to accompany the patient during examination. Some emergency equipment is also provided to prepare the emergency case if happen like oxygen, blood pressure tool, emergency drugs and so on.

It’s usually, Intravenous technique used if
- The oral technique failed to visualize the quality images of gall bladder and biliary tract.
- There is suspicious of any tumor near the porta hepatis.
- Disorders of biliary function.
- Preoperative test for calculi demonstration in the bile duct before cholecystectomy.

Using one of the tests above depends on your Doctor and Specialist recommendation. I’m sure they will choose the best test that suitable with your need and consider the least of negative impacts.

IMAGE BY DIAGNOSTIC VISION LTD

Random Posts

Tagged with:

Filed under: Radiology

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!