(Physics) The Poor Man’s Guide to Extending the Life of Your X-ray Tube

Has the hospital left you with the responsibility of being the only X-ray technologist on call with hundreds of patients to help? Me too… Hi, I am Dr. Bob and I am here to help you cope. I have the the understanding that you are in some trouble and are going to have a rough day. The line of people that are waiting in your database that have checked in for X-rays is outrageous and you need to X-ray everyone. Do not lose hope because I am here to help… but not really. I am here to tell you some tips to keeping your X-ray tube from overheating and breaking down on you.

One of the ways that you as a radiology technologist can help prolong the life of your X-ray tube is to reduce the technical factors. For example, it is not smart to take images with high exposure times and high mAs/kVp factors. This will keep your X-ray tube from being battered by the electrons inside of the tube itself. Long exposure times or high levels of mA can both harm the tube.

Another thing that you as an X-ray technologist can do to help keep your X-ray tube running nice and smooth is to not take exposures one after another. By giving your X-ray tube some time to relax and cool down, you are enabling it to not overheat. This is important because if the tube overheats, there is a chance that it can crack the vacuum seal. Another way that you can harm your tube by overheating it is by prepping the tube too much and not taking an exposure.

Finally, the last thing that you can do to preserve the life of your equipment is to monitor the levels of your X-ray tube. Some machines will have monitors on the control panel that can help monitor the heat of the X-ray tube. Being conscious of this as well as continually getting maintenance on the tube can reduce the chances of complications within the tube.

Now that you have imaged your long line of patients and have not completely destroyed your machine, you can now finally sit down for a minute. After a long day of work and constant monitoring, you have finally realized that what I have subjected you do only makes your job more complicated and longer. You now realize the level of maintenance that you must be aware of when monitoring an expensive piece of equipment.

Have Fun… and don’t forget about the charts to check exposure factors…