[Development of a counting method for black spots caused by radioactive contamination on the imaging plate]

Due to accidents of the nuclear power plants in Fukushima prefecture, a lot of radioisotopes were diffused into the environment. They adhered onto the surface of the X-ray detector (imaging plate; IP) and many black spots were seen on the medical images. The process to count them is important to evaluate the degree of contamination and/or removal. In this study, we aimed to develop a counting method for black spots. Based on the analysis of the medical images having black spots, we summarized that areas affected by the certain black spots were limited to the eight pixels surrounding the most intensive pixel. The newly developed counting method was applied to these nine pixels (3×3 pixels) and selection rules were based on the following two information: 1. differences between the digital value of the most intensive pixel and those of the surrounding eight pixels, and 2. total summation of the digital values in the nine pixels. The estimated image based on our method showed a good concordance with the original image. Therefore, we summarized that our counting method is a powerful tool for estimating numbers of black spots.