Film-Screen Vs. Digital Radiography in Rheumatoid Arthritis of the Hand

Abstract

In a prospective investigation the diagnostic accuracy of filmscreen and digital radiography in rheumatoid arthritis of hands was compared. Seventy hands of 36 patients with established rheumatoid arthritis were included in the study. Each of 11 joints in every hand was evaluated regarding the following radiologic parameters: soft tissue swelling, joint space narrowing, erosions and periarticular osteopenia. The digital images were obtained with storage phosphor image plates and evaluated in 2 forms; as digital hard-copy on film and on a monitor of an interactive workstation. The digital images had a resolution of either 3.33 or 5.0 lp/mm. ROC curves were constructed and comparing the area under the curves no significant difference was found between the 3 different imaging forms in either resolution group for soft tissue swelling, joint space narrowing and erosions. The film-screen image evaluation of periarticular osteopenia was significantly better than the digital hard-copy one in the 3.33 lplmm resolution group, but no significant difference was found in the 5.0 lplmm group. These results support the view that currently available digital systems are capable of adequate diagnostic performance.

Spatial Resolution Requirements in Digital Radiography of Scaphoid Fractures

“…The contrast resolution (bits/pixel) is often not the same on the monitor as on the images printed by a laser printer. However, some studies in musculoskeletal radiology, where images were viewed both as hard copies and on workstations, have shown a similar diagnostic accuracy of both viewing forms (8,9).…”

“…Apart from system resolution, the viewing condi tions may be very important when using work stations (7), and suboptimal conditions may ad versely affect diagnostic accuracy in clinical set tings. Furthermore, according to several studies (8,9,11,20,22), the workstation evaluation is more time-consuming than plain film viewing. The view ing conditions in our study were good, without time limits, and did probably not have any adverse ef fects on the observers.…”

Internet hand x-rays: A comparison of joint space narrowing and erosion scores (Sharp/Genant) of plain versus digitized x-rays in rheumatoid arthritis patients

“…Although several previous studies have investigated the efficacy of digital x-rays to interpret the musculoskeletal system [11-13] and others compare digital and plain film x-rays for assessing rheumatoid arthritis [6,14], there has been limited investigation into the reliability of assessing Internet x-ray images of rheumatoid patients.…”

Digital Luminescence Radiography and Conventional Radiography in Abdominal Contrast Examinations

“…Spatial resolution requirements are less crucial for evaluating commonly encountered abnormalities on abdominal contrast medium studies than in chest or skeletal radiographs. The spatial resolution necessary to visualize subtle septal lines in chest radiographs is considered to be 2.5 to 5 Ip/mm (4,6,8,14). A spatial resolution of 5.7 Ip/mm is sufficient to detect subperiosteal lesions, whereas a spatial resolution of 2.9 Ip/ mm is required for the detection of nondislocated fractures (18,19).…”

“…While digital radiography has been extensively evaluated with respect to thoracic and musculoskeletal imaging, its applicability to abdominal examinations is still under investigation (1-3, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]16,17,[20][21][22][23]. Abdominal contrast medium studies are frequently performed and yield comparatively high gonadal doses.…”