Clinical evaluation of a new digital chest imaging system

A digital chest imaging system based on a selenium detector has been installed in a large teaching hospital. Up to 1 May 1994, 7000 patients have been studied by this new technique. Hard copies are printed on a laser imager. Image quality of the digital system was analysed by day-to-day comparison with a conventional chest system. In a pilot study of 40 patients conventional and digital images were compared by analysing six different anatomical regions. Two readers judged the image quality of the digital system to be better than that of a conventional chest system, all regions being better visualised on the digital images (P < 0.01). Acceptance of the digital chest system by radiographers, radiologists and other medical specialists is good. More than half of the normal patient load is routinely dealt with using the new system. Retakes were hardly necessary. Post-processing is possible, but was seldom used. These preliminary overall results of a digital chest imaging system based on a selenium detector in routine clinical practice are promising and further phantom studies and clinical studies using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis are currently being performed. (orig.)