Feasibility of 0.3 mm Cu Additional Beam Filtration for Digital Gastrointestinal Fluororadiography

A total of 102 image pairs were created out of 56 barium and 46 iodine contrast digital fluororadiographs of the GI tract in 102 adult patients, each containing an image with and one without additional beam filtration (ABF) with 0.3 mm Cu. Five radiologists subjectively scored image noise, contrast, sharpness, overall quality, and their impression whether the actual image had been acquired with or without ABF. Besides image noise, which was found to be increased by a small but significant extent, no significant differences in the other image quality parameters were shown. Also, it was difficult for the observers to decide whether an image had been acquired with or without ABF. Contrast detail detection was only minimally decreased by ABF. Because of these minimal effects on image quality, it was concluded that additional beam filtration (0.3 mm Cu) could be implemented for digital fluororadiography in adult patients, enabling further dose reductions. (author)