Comparison of the conventional reusable cotton and disposable nonwoven fabric patient gowns in digital chest radiography

The purpose of this study was to analyze artifacts caused by conventional cotton material gowns in chest X-ray images obtained with digital radiography (DR) and to evaluate whether image artifacts were reduced when nonwoven fabric gowns were used. We assessed DR chest X-ray images of patients in our hospital database for artifacts. We also obtained images of reusable woven gowns made of two thicknesses of cotton and of disposable gowns made of unwoven polypropylene material. We then measured signal and noise obtained in the same test regions of these different types of gowns, three times under the same conditions and calculated the mean of each signal. The regions of interest (ROI) selected were based on three representative regions of the chest images; signal and noise were measured using a window width of 950 and a window level of 3340 after setting an ROI measuring 334 mm(2). In the patient images, linear artifacts caused by cotton gowns appeared in the left and right upper lung areas, while no artifacts were caused by gowns made of nonwoven material. In the comparison of gowns made of different materials, the mean value of the ROI signal of the cotton material was significantly higher than that of the nonwoven material (p = 0.01); the noise value of the cotton material was also higher, but without statistical significance. Linear artifacts were found in images obtained in DR chest radiography when patients wore cotton fabric gowns, but no artifacts were observed when these were replaced with nonwoven fabric gowns.