OBJECTIVETo study the consistency between DR and high-kV chest radiographs in diagnosis of pneumoconiosis and to explore the feasibility of DR chest radiograph in the diagnosis of pneumoconiosis.

METHODSTwenty five coal miners were examined with DR and high-kV chest radiographs at the same time. Image post-processing parameters (density, contrast, etc.) were set to ensure the quality of DR chest radiograph in Philips Essenta DR machine. In order to avoid the repetitive numbers, 50 chest radiographs were numbered at random. Pneumoconiosis diagnosis was conducted by six independent certified occupational physicians of pneumoconiosis by blind method. The consistency between 2 kinds of chest films was assessed.

RESULTSAll chest radiographs (25 cases, 50 chest films) were excellent. The diagnosis results of six readers on the 15 pairs of DR and high-kV chest radiographies were summarized. For high-kV chest radiographs, the consistency of pneumoconiosis classification for 12 pairs of readers was more than 68%, the consistency of total density for 11 pairs of readers was more than 68%. For DR chest radiographs, the consistency of pneumoconiosis classification for 13 pairs of readers was more than 60%, the consistency of total density for 14 pairs of readers was more than 60%. The consistency of pneumoconiosis classification between two chest radiographs was 72% (value: 0.69, 95% CI: 0.46-0.92), the consistency of total density between two chest radiographs was 80% (value: 0.78, 95% CI: 0.61-0.95).

CONCLUSIONWhen the chest radiograph quality was good and the difference of reading films was low, there was a good consistency of pneumoconiosis diagnosis between DR chest radiographs and high-kV chest radiographs.