Assessment of Image Quality and Radiation Dose to Adult Patients undergoing Computed Radiography Examinations

Authors

  • Daniel Ackom  Department of Physics, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
  • Stephen Inkoom  Department of Medical Physics, School of Nuclear and Allied Sciences, University of Ghana, Atomic Campus, Accra, Ghana
  • Edem Sosu  Medical Radiation Physics Centre, Radiological and Medical Sciences Research Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Accra. Ghana
  • Cyril Schandorf  Radiation Protection Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Accra. Ghana

Keywords:

Contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), Optimisation

Abstract

Image quality and its related entrance surface dose to adult patients undergoing computed radiography (CR) examinations have been assessed using ImageJ software version 1.48 in two hospitals H-1 and H-2. In all 70 radiographs of adult patients were examined in the study consisting of 10 each for chest PA, cervical spine AP and LAT, lumbar spine AP and LAT and skull AP and LAT. Image quality of the radiographic images was assessed in terms of contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The CNR for all examinations were between 3.54 3.27 and 20.63 8.65 for the two hospitals involved in this study. A maximum difference 17.09 in CNR was found between hospital 1 (H-1) and 2 (H-2). The results obtained for SNR for both hospitals showed that 92.86% of all the images assessed were at least 1.22 higher than the Rose Model of the threshold value of 5. The images were of good quality and hence, they provided useful clinical information. The relationship between CNR and the entrance surface dose (ESD) to patients for all the examinations showed that there is a potential to reduce doses to patients while keeping images of diagnostic quality.

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Published

2017-12-31

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Section

Research Articles

How to Cite

[1]
Daniel Ackom, Stephen Inkoom, Edem Sosu, Cyril Schandorf, " Assessment of Image Quality and Radiation Dose to Adult Patients undergoing Computed Radiography Examinations, International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology(IJSRST), Online ISSN : 2395-602X, Print ISSN : 2395-6011, Volume 3, Issue 8, pp.89-94, November-December-2017.