[Development of breathing chest radiography: study of exposure timing]

The flat-panel detector (FPD) has been introduced into clinical practice. A modified FPD, which has the ability to obtain dynamic chest radiographs, was introduced into our hospital, and clinical testing is ongoing. Both the inspiratory and expiratory phases have to be included in dynamic chest radiographs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the most appropriate chest radiography signal for observation of the respiratory process. We prepared ten protocol patterns that differed in terms of respiratory phase at X-ray exposure, exposure duration, and signal multiplicity. We also performed preliminary experiments and administered several questionnaires to ten volunteers. The volunteers breathed according to vocal and visual signals, and their respiratory waves were recorded by spirometer. The most appropriate protocol was similar to the method used for conventional chest radiography.