[Digital thorax radiography: flat-panel detector or storage phosphor plates]

Flat panel detectors are characterized by improved handling and increased dose efficiency. This allows for increasing of work flow efficiency and for reducing the exposure dose by about 50% compared to current systems with a sensitivity of 400. Whether the increased dose efficiency should be used to reduce acquisition dose or to increase image quality in the chest, will be shown by further clinical experience and will be also determined by the subjective preference of the radiologists. The decreased level of image noise opens new perspectives for image processing that way that elaborated multifrequency processing allows for optimizing the display of very small and low contrast structures that was so far limited by overlying image noise. Specialized applications of dual energy subtraction and temporal subtraction will also profit by the new detector technology and will be further driven forward in context with applications such as computed assisted diagnosis even though this is currently not yet broadly applied. Storage phosphor radiography still represents an important alternative technique based on its larger flexibility with respect to equipment configuration, its broader application options in intensive care and emergency radiology and due to economic reasons. These facts are further underlined by the fact that image quality also in storage phosphor radiography could be constantly increased by improving detector technology and image processing and consequently has a high standard.