Experimental Evaluation of Optimization in Cr and Dr Digital Radiography Systems: A Study with Anthropomorphic Phantom

Place and Duration of Study: Sample: The experimental optimization study was conducted at a radiology clinic in Santa Maria, RS, Brazil between June 2022 and December 2022.

In this study, we verified the efficiency of two digital radiography image acquisition systems (CR and DR) for a radiographic system.

Methodology: We used an anthropomorphic phantom that represents the anatomy of the pelvis region of an adult patient. For image acquisition and dosimetric measurements, the radiographic system and two clinical use image digitization systems were used, and the dosimetric measurements were obtained through a radiation detector. For optimization of the exam, five different exposure techniques were used. With ImageJ software it was possible to obtain the signal and noise values for image quality (IQ) from regions of interest (ROI) defined in the image anatomy. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was calculated. The percentage deviation (D%) was chosen to compare the readings against the reference technique, which is used by radiology professionals in the clinic for pelvic examination.

Results: The results obtained in this study point out that the DR system offers a constant SNR and a better visualization of tissues at low contrast when compared to the CR system. It was found that by raising the X-ray tube voltage and reducing the current product by time (70 kV and 32 mAs) to (100 kV and 5 mAs) one can optimize the pelvis radiographic examination for DR system, i.e., the KERMA in the incident air (KAR) was reduced from 2.9 mGy to 0.5 mGy (-76.3%) at the patient's pelvis surface. Average dose reduction in organs from 3.07 to 0.94 mGy (-69.5%) in the testes, 0.69 to 0.33 mGy (-52.2%) in the ovaries, 1.20 to 0.51 mGy (-57.3%) in the prostate, 0.14 to 0.07% (-46.4%) mGy in the bone marrow and 35.3% and 62.2% reduction (0.45 to 0.17) mSv the total effective dose of the exam with IQ higher by 11%.