Patient doses and image quality in digital chest radiology.

Chest X-ray examination is one of the most frequently required procedures used in clinical practice. For studying the image quality of different X-ray digital systems and for the control of patient doses during chest radiological examinations, the standard anthropomorphic lung/chest phantom RSD 330 has been used and exposed in different digital modalities available in Slovakia. To compare different techniques of chest examination, a special software has been developed that enables researchers to compare digital imaging and communications in medicine header images from different digital modalities, using a special viewer. In this paper, this special software has been used for an anonymous correspondent audit for testing image quality evaluation by comparing various parameters of chest imaging, evaluated by 84 Slovak radiologists. The results of the comparison have shown that the majority of the participating radiologists felt that the highest image quality is reached with a flat panel, assessed by the entrance surface dose value, which is approximately 75% lower than the diagnostic reference level of chest examination given in the Slovak legislation. Besides the results of the audit, the possibilities of using the software for optimisation, education and training of medical students, radiological assistants, physicists and radiologists in the field of digital radiology will be described.