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A phantom for dose-image quality optimization in chest radiography

Applied Physics Department, Konstantin Preslavsky University, 9712 Shumen, Bulgaria

Optimization in chest radiography requires evaluation of patient dose and image quality. This study is aimed at proposing a simple geometrical phantom that realistically simulates the important anatomical regions of the thorax. For this purpose, the standard LucAl chest phantom is modified by adding an "anthropomorphic" insert and image quality test plate. Different test objects are arranged on the plate in three important anatomical areas; lung, cardiac, and subdiaphragmal regions. The aim is to simultaneously find two types of image quality index, objective and subjective, which can be used to compare different images in order to select the better image. Two objective indices are proposed, areal contrast index C_a and scatter fraction P_s and two subjectively estimated, a low contrast visualization index P_low and a high contrast visualization index P_high. To demonstrate the potential of this phantom method it was applied to an X-ray unit to find the optical film density that ensures optimal visualization in different anatomical areas. It was found for the X-ray system under investigation that the automatic exposure control could be set to produce an optical density of about 1.8 in the lung field. The reported method is easily implemented in any clinical situation where optimization of chest radiography is needed.

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