(Osm) A unit of osmotic pressure used in physical chemistry, cell biology, and medicine.
Definition: 1 osmole is the osmotic pressure of a one molar solution (that is, a solution with a concentration of one mole per liter of solvent) of a substance that does not dissociate.
If chemical solutions are separated by a semipermeable membrane (a membrane that resists the passage of dissolved substances but permits the passage of the solvent, usually water), then the solvent will diffuse across the membrane to equalize the concentrations. This process is called osmosis.
Solutions with higher concentrations of dissolved substances are said to have higher osmotic pressure than solutions having lower concentrations; thus the solvent moves from an area of low osmotic pressure to an area of higher osmotic pressure.
Osmotic pressure depends on the total number of dissolved particles, so for a substance that dissociates into two ions, such as ordinary salt (sodium chloride), a one molar solution has an osmotic pressure of 2 osmoles. In practice, most measurements are in milliosmoles (mOsm). Typical values range from 20 mOsm for fresh water through 290 mOsm for typical human blood plasma to 1010 mOsm for salt water from the open ocean.
See also Part Per Million.

(p) The pitch (in computed tomography) is the ratio of the patient table increment to the total nominal beam width for the CT scan. The pitch factor relates the volume coverage speed to the thinnest sections that can be reconstructed. In spiral CT, dose is always inversely proportional to pitch.
Among the different manufacturers, there are various definitions of pitch depending on whether a single-detector (single-slice) or multi-detector (multi-slice) CT scanner is used.

A film consists of a thin, transparent sheet of polyester or similar material. Films are coated on one or both sides with an emulsion sensitive to radiation, light or heat. Films are relatively radiolucent due to their relatively low atomic number (that of silver halide).

See also X-Ray Film, Direct Exposure Film and Intensifying Screen.

A fluoroscope projects x-ray images in a video sequence (movie) onto a screen monitor.
Early generation fluoroscopes presented particularly difficult viewing challenges for radiologists. The human retina contains two types of image receptors. Cones (central vision) operate better in bright light, while rods (peripheral vision) are more sensitive to blue-green light and low light. Therefore, the radiologists wear red goggles to filter out blue-green wavelengths to allow the rods to recover peak sensitivity before viewing fluoroscopic images.
To avoid this time consuming accommodation, the industry developed the image intensifier tube in the 1950s. Due to the high amount of individual images during a fluoroscan, a very sensitive amplifier is needed to cut down radiation exposure. Until today, image intensifiers amplify the faint light emitted by the fluorescing screen and the images can be viewed on a monitor. Recently, digital technique replaces the large and bulky image intensifier with flat-panel technology.
Various other components of a fluoroscope system include a gantry, patient table, x-ray tube, filters, collimators, images sensor, camera and computer, most similar to other radiographic systems.
A fluoroscopy system provides the view of moving anatomic structures and is valuable in performing procedures that require continuous imaging and monitoring, such as barium studies, gastrointestinal function tests, cardiac functions, studies of diaphragmatic movement, or catheter placements. A number of technologies are available to record images created during fluoroscopic (fluorographic) exams.

A pixel is a picture element (pix, abbreviation of pictures + element). Tomographic images are composed of several pixels; the pixel size is determined by the used field of view and the number of elements in the display image matrix. The corresponding size of the pixel may be smaller than the actual spatial resolution.
Pixels do not have a fixed size; their diameters are generally measured in micrometers (microns). Although the pixel is not a unit of measurement itself, pixels are often used to measure the resolution (or sharpness) of images. As a hypothetical example, a 600 x 1000 pixel image has 4 times the pixel density and is thus 4 times sharper than a 300 x 500 pixel image, assuming the two images have the same physical size.