Digital chest radiography with a large-area flat-panel silicon X-ray detector: clinical comparison with conventional radiography

This was a radiologists' preference study to compare a digital chest radiography system that utilizes a large-area silicon flat-panel detector with conventional radiography for visualizing anatomic regions of the chest. Conventional and digital posteroanterior (PA) and lateral chest radiographs were obtained in 115 patients. The PA and lateral image pairs were compared independently by three radiologists rating the overall appearance, 11 anatomic regions in the PA, and 9 in the lateral views. Statistical analysis was performed with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test with Bonferroni-Holm adjustment (p = 0.05). For the PA view, the digital system performed significantly better for the overall appearance and for all anatomic regions except for the peripheral pulmonary vasculature and hilum, where no significant difference was found. For the lateral digital images, the regions trachea, costodiaphragmatic recess, and hilum were rated significantly worse. The regions retrosternal and retrocardiac lung were rated significantly better. The other regions and the overall appearance showed no significant differences. The described digital chest radiography system showed statistically superior visualization of anatomic regions for PA and an ambiguous performance for lateral images as compared with conventional radiography. After changing some image processing parameters for the lateral view, this system may be suitable for digitalization of chest radiography.