Comparison of Digital Radiographs with Film Radiographs for the Classification of Pneumoconiosis1

The association between tobacco burden and “dirty chest” is unlikely to follow a linear dose-response pattern

“…Franzblau et al [3] reported that ILO classifications from laser-printed transparencies showed a significantly higher profusion of small opacities than either ''soft copy'' readings or traditional film-based radiographs taken on the same day in the same individuals, a finding of relevance to the severity and extent of abnormalities found in the Kirchner study.…”

Comparison of storage phosphor computed radiography with conventional film-screen radiography in the recognition of pneumoconiosis

“…The image display devices met the specifications for display capabilities of the large-matrix size diagnostic monitors as specified by the American College of Radiology Technical Standard for Electronic Practice of Medical Imaging 2007 and the DICOM standard 3.14 for grayscale display function [8]. Classifications were performed using side-by-side comparisons with digitised versions of the ILO standard films that had been previously validated [3]. Readers were instructed not to modify the display characteristics of the digitised standard images during the classification process, but were permitted to modify brightness, contrast, and magnification of the miner's digital chest radiograph on the workstation, as permitted in the study of FRANZBLAU et al [3].…”

“…Presently, two basic technologies are used to acquire digital plain chest images: storage phosphor computed radiography (CR) and digital direct readout radiography (DR) systems [2]. One previous study evaluated DR chest images and confirmed their utility with respect to the recognition and classification of pneumoconioses [3]. Because CR systems are in widespread use but have not been extensively assessed, we evaluated radiographic opacities among 1,388 dust-exposed workers using CR digital chest images displayed on medical-grade computer monitors, as well as hard copy FSR taken on the same day.…”

Reply to the letter to the Editor by Laney et al: The association between tobacco burden and “dirty chest” is unlikely to follow a linear dose-response pattern

“…In our opinion, the conclusion of Franzblau et al [1], that ILO classifications from laser-printed transparencies show a significantly higher profusion of small opacities than ''soft copy'' or traditional film-based radiography, has become relative, as the same authors describe the similarity of those radiographs in subsequent studies [2,3].…”