OBJECTIVETo investigate the effect of different processing parameters of digital radiography (DR) on the image quality of digital chest radiograph in dust-exposed workers.

METHODSOne hundred and five dust-exposed workers underwent both high-KV radiography and DR to obtain chest radiographs; the image processing parameters were set by the conventional processing method for digital chest radiograph (method A) and the processing method based on the special requirements of occupational diseases (method B). With the high-KV chest radiograph as the reference, the image qualities at 10 anatomic sites of DR image were graded. The images acquired by DR and high-KV radiography were compared, and the DR images acquired by methods A and B were also compared.

RESULTSFor method A, the scores at the 10 anatomic sites of DR image were mostly 0 and +1, accounting for over 88%, and the mean score was 0.23 ∼ 0.65, there was a significant difference between the mean score of DR image and the score of high-KV image (P < 0.001). For method B, the scores at the 10 anatomic sites of DR image were mostly 0, accounting for over 65%, and the mean score was -0.01∼ +0.02 except at the pleura and chest wall; there was no significant difference between the mean score of DR image and the score of high-KV image (P > 0.05). There were significant differences in the scores at the 10 anatomic sites between the DR images acquired by methods A and B (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONThe DR images acquired based on different processing parameters are different. The quality of DR image acquired by the processing method based on the special requirements of occupational diseases is similar to that of high-KV image at the anatomic sites.