Which of the following is a common cause of a blank radiographic film?

• A. Patient moved
• B. Film placed in fixer solution before developer
• C. Dark film
• D. Overdeveloped

Answer: (B)

A radiographic image appears when the latent image formed by exposure is developed chemically. If the film is placed in fixer before it has been developed, the fixer removes silver halide crystals that have not been reduced to metallic silver, so there is no image to fix and the emulsion ends up cleared. In other words, development must occur before fixing for any image to appear; applying fixer first wipes away the undeveloped crystals and leaves a blank film. The other problems would alter density or clarity (such as blur from movement or overly dark images from overdevelopment) rather than producing a completely blank radiograph.