Exam category: Image Production → Image Acquisition & Evaluation
Why it matters: AEC and technique charts set the exposure before you press the switch, and both fail when they are set up wrong: the wrong AEC detector selected, the part not centered over the detector, or a chart adjustment missed for the patient. The registry tests how each one works and the setup errors that defeat it.
Automatic exposure control (AEC) ends the exposure automatically instead of the tech guessing a time. A technique chart — or its console-programmed form, APR — gives you a pre-tested starting set of factors for each exam, so you adjust from a known baseline instead of guessing from scratch. The adjustments the chart can't predict (habitus, casts, contrast media, pathology) are the tested part.
AEC terminates the exposure once a predetermined amount of radiation has passed through the patient — it controls exposure time, and therefore total dose, but has no effect on kVp or contrast. The tech still selects kVp, mA, and grid manually.
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A technologist selects AEC for an AP abdomen. Which factor does the AEC itself set for this exposure?
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