Dependence of low contrast detail on exposure dose and tube voltage in digital flat-panel detector radiography—a pre-clinical phantom study

Notohamiprodjo, S.; Verstreepen, L.; Wanninger, F.; Hoberg, B.; Roeper, K. M.; Mueck, F. G.; Treitl, K. M.; Maxien, D. and Wirth, S. (2018): Dependence of low contrast detail on exposure dose and tube voltage in digital flat-panel detector radiography—a pre-clinical phantom study. In: Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express, Vol. 4, No. 2

Abstract

Purpose. Pre-clinical determination of reasonable simplified examination protocols before clinical application to assess the performance of a direct digital radiography (DDR) system. Material and methods. The experimental setup consists of a DDR system with fixed flat-panel detector (CsI). A phantom with low-contrast structures (LCS) was examined in two settings in order to simulate standard radiographs: (1) small peripheral joints like the wrist (no patient phantom, no anti-scatter grid) and (2) big proximal joints like the hip (20 cm water tank patient simulation and with an anti-scatter grid). Setup (1) was manually exposed at 55 kV/2 mAs, 60 k V/1.6 mAs and 65 k V/1.25 mAs. Setup (2) was automatically exposed at 1.6, 2.5, 4 and 6 mu Gy per kV-setting (80 +/- 5 kV). Contrast-detail curves (CDC) were generated by analyzer software. Results. Exposures of setup(1) showed similar CDC(p = 0.99) with a decreasing curve with larger diameter of LCS. In all exposures of setup (2) CDC were similar for all kV-settings (p > 0.93) with a decreasing curve with larger LCS diameter. CDC insignificantly decrease with increasing exposure dose (p > 0.38). Conclusion. Low-contrast detectability was independent of kV and marginally dependent on the dose, both within a certain range. This could be used to further reduce radiation dose and simplify examination protocols to be tested in a further clinical study.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Medicine
• Subjects: 600 Technology > 610 Medicine and health
• ISSN: 2057-1976
• Language: English