Interstitial lung disease: impact of postprocessing in digital storage phosphor imaging

Area of Science:

• Radiology and Medical Imaging
• Pulmonary Medicine
• Digital Health

Background:

• Interstitial lung disease (ILD) detection relies on imaging system performance.
• Evaluating digital radiography (DR) algorithms against conventional screen-film radiography (SFR) is crucial for clinical adoption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the diagnostic performance of various storage phosphor digital radiography (SPDR) algorithms with conventional screen-film radiography (SFR) for detecting interstitial lung abnormalities.
• To identify optimal SPDR algorithms for visualizing fine linear structures characteristic of ILD.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 40 patients with ILD and 25 healthy controls was conducted.
• Six different storage phosphor digital radiography algorithms were tested against screen-film radiography.
• Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis by six readers evaluated image performance.

Main Results:

• Moderately and markedly high-frequency edge-enhanced SPDR algorithms demonstrated performance equivalent to SFR.
• Default mode, low/medium-frequency edge-enhanced, and grayscale reversed SPDR algorithms were inferior to SFR.
• High-frequency edge enhancement significantly improved SPDR performance for ILD detection.

Conclusions:

• High-frequency edge-enhanced algorithms in SPDR can achieve diagnostic performance comparable to conventional screen-film radiography for interstitial lung disease.
• Algorithm selection is critical for optimizing digital radiography systems in detecting subtle lung abnormalities.