New patient-controlled abdominal compression method in radiography: radiation dose and image quality

The radiation dose for patients can be reduced with many methods and one way is to use abdominal compression. In this study, the radiation dose and image quality for a new patient-controlled compression device were compared with conventional compression and compression in the prone position.

To compare radiation dose and image quality of patient-controlled compression compared with conventional and prone compression in general radiography.

An experimental design with quantitative approach. After obtaining the approval of the ethics committee, a consecutive sample of 48 patients was examined with the standard clinical urography protocol. The radiation doses were measured as dose-area product and analyzed with a paired t-test. The image quality was evaluated by visual grading analysis. Four radiologists evaluated each image individually by scoring nine criteria modified from the European quality criteria for diagnostic radiographic images.

There was no significant difference in radiation dose or image quality between conventional and patient-controlled compression. Prone position resulted in both higher dose and inferior image quality.

Patient-controlled compression gave similar dose levels as conventional compression and lower than prone compression. Image quality was similar with both patient-controlled and conventional compression and was judged to be better than in the prone position.