Filmless musculoskeletal radiology: why is it taking so long?

Digital images as an alternative to plain radiographs in musculoskeletal radiology have not been readily accepted to date. This article looks at the different aspects of filmless imaging and offers an opinion concerning this lack of acceptance. Although spatial resolution, image storage, and image transmission present potential problems, the greatest problem is image display. Commercially available workstations do not compete well with the speed and simplicity of the conventional film and view box.