Quality aspects of digital radiography in general dental practice

The number of dentists who have converted from conventional film radiography to digital radiography continues to grow. A digital system has numerous advantages, but there are also many new aspects to consider. The overall aim of this thesis was to study how digital radiography was used in general dental practices. The specific aims were to study how different factors affected image quality. To determine whether there were any differences in image quality between conventional film radiographs and digital radiographs, 4863 images (540 cases) were evaluated. The cases had been sent to the Swedish Dental Insurance Office for prior treatment approval. The image quality of digital radiographs was found to be significantly lower than that of film radiographs. This result led to a questionnaire study of dentists experienced in digital radiography. In 2003, a questionnaire was sent to the 139 general practice dentists who worked with digital radiography in Skine, Sweden; the response rate was 94%. Many general practice dentists had experienced several problems (65%), and less than half of the digital systems (40%) underwent some kind of quality control. One of the weaker links in the technical chain of digital radiography appeared to be the monitor. A field study to 19 dentists at their clinics found that the brightness and contrast settings of the monitors had to be adjusted to obtain the subjectively best image quality. The ambient light in the evaluation room was also found to affect the diagnostic outcome of low-contrast patterns in radiographs. To evaluate the effects of ambient light and technical adjustments of the monitor, a study using standardised set-ups was designed. Seven observers evaluated radiographs of 100 extracted human teeth for approximal caries under five different combinations of brightness and contrast settings on two different occasions with high and low ambient light levels in the evaluation room. The ability to diagnose carious lesions was found to be significantly better in a room with lower ambient light and on a monitor with well-adjusted brightness and contrast values than in a room with bright light and on an unadjusted monitor. In conclusion, many problems with dental digital radiography were identified. Knowledge of digital techniques and how to optimise each link in the system to maintain high radiographic quality at all times must be improved.