Assessment of radiation dose in digital storage phosphor radiography

This paper reports on digital storage phosphor radiography that is able to produce images of constant optical density over a wide range of exposure dose by adjusting reading sensitivity. Since overexposed images are not as-readily recognized as with the conventional film-screen technique, a method capable of determining radiation dose is necessary to detect overexposures (due to, e.g., handling errors or technical defects). A formula was designed that calculates the radiation dose in the film plane from image sensitivity (S-factor), latitude (L-factor), and average gray value over the region of interest. To verify the formula, 106 measurements with variation of dose, L-factor, S-factor, and the readout algorithm were made with the Digiscan storage phosphor system (Siemens)