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Evaluation of an enhanced digital film-duplication system by receiver operating characteristic analysis
K R Hoffmann1, H MacMahon, K Doi
1Kurt Rossmann Laboratories for Radiologic Image Research, Department of Radiology, University of Chicago, IL 60637.
Rationale And Objectives:
Over- or underexposure often results in poor quality radiographs. Using receiver operating characteristic analysis, the authors investigated the potential utility of a system that corrects densities in such images to improve the accuracy of lung nodule detection.
Methods:
Chest radiographs were digitized by a laser film digitizer. Simulated nodules were superimposed on 36 improperly exposed chest radiographs. All images, with and without nodules, were then processed by a nonlinear density-correction technique. Hard-copy images were produced by a laser film printer. Eight radiologists evaluated the corrected and uncorrected images for the presence or absence of lung nodules using a continuous (0-100) confidence-rating scale.
Result:
The detectability of lung nodules improved significantly in the retrocardiac/retrodiaphragmatic regions of underexposed images and in the peripheral lung region of overexposed images.
Conclusions:
This system may increase diagnostic accuracy in detection of lung nodules in improperly exposed images.