Comparison of dual-energy and conventional chest radiography for nodule detection.
This paper presents the results of a nodule detection study, using a Humanoid chest phantom, which was designed to evaluate the performance of two types of dual-energy and conventional (single-energy) chest radiography. The film-screen apparatis were used as image detectors for all imaging modalities. The area under the ROC curve and the cumulative true-positive fraction both were used as performance indexes in the evaluation. Because of the small number of false-positive responses in the observer studies, the cumulative true-positive fraction was eventually regarded as a more conclusive index of accuracy than the area under the ROC curve to make a reasonable conclusion. Both dual-energy techniques, dual- and single-exposure, were found to be superior to conventional chest radiography, P less than 0.0005 and P less than 0.006 for dual- and single-exposure techniques, respectively. The difference between the two dual-energy techniques was statistically insignificant, P less than 0.47. We concluded that the dual-energy, single-exposure technique is worthy of further clinical study based on these encouraging results and because of the ease with which the technique can be implemented.
Ho
J T
JT
Department of Radiology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City 84132.
Kruger
R A
RA
D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008961:Models, Structural; D012372:ROC Curve; D015900:Radiography, Dual-Energy Scanned Projection / Q000379:methods*; D013902:Radiography, Thoracic / Q000379:methods*