Evaluation of Image Quality and Radiation Dose in Upgraded Analog Radiographic Systems Using the Contrast Detail Radiography (CDRAD) Phantom

Upgrading analog X-ray systems to digital systems will greatly reduce costs, but there are conflicting opinions on this subject. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare image quality and radiation dose in different upgraded analog radiography systems with a digital radiography system.

Image quality and radiation dose of five upgraded analog radiography systems were compared with a digital radiography system using the Contrast Detail Radiography (CDRAD) phantom. Quality of images were independently evaluated on a workstation using a quantitative factor Inverse image quality figure (IQFinv) by three observers. Variations of IQFinv values were compared as a function of the Incident Air Kerma (IAK) parameter for different radiographic systems.

In a fixed IAK (1000 micrograms), the highest IQFinv was for upgraded analog radiography system number 4 (4.97) and the lowest IQFinv was for upgraded analog radiography system number 1 (3.61) (P = 0.001). The quality of images obtained with the upgraded analog radiography systems number 4 and 5 were better than ones of digital radiography.

If upgraded analog radiography systems can produce high quality images with low radiation dose compared to digital radiographic systems, the imaging departments is not needed to be spend a lot of money for replacing them with digital radiography systems.