Comparison between a screen-film system and a selenium radiography system - An ROC study using simulated thoracic lesions

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES. TO evaluate the diagnostic image quality of the hard copies of a commercially available selenium detector-based computed radiography system compared to that of a conventional screen-film system, METHODS. Ten radiographs of an anthropomorphic chest phantom with simulated nodular and linear-reticular lesions were produced using either system, Each radiograph was sub-divided into 15 fields containing zero lesions, one nodular lesion, one linear-reticular lesion, or both lesions, The total or 150 Gelds for each modality was reviewed by six radiologists, and receiver operating analysis was performed, RESULTS. The conventional screen-film system performed significantly better for nodular lesions, whereas no statistically significant difference was found between the detection rates of both systems for linear-reticular lesions, CONCLUSIONS. The better detection of nodules with the dedicated selenium detector can be explained by the higher dynamic range of the system, Detection of linear-reticular lesions was slightly but not significantly better with the screen-film system, but the detection rate of the selenium detector might be further improved with a different image processing technique.