Image quality evaluation of eight complementary metal-oxide semiconductor intraoral digital X-ray sensors.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the image quality generated by eight commercially available intraoral sensors.


METHODS
Eighteen clinicians ranked the quality of a bitewing acquired from one subject using eight different intraoral sensors. Analytical methods used to evaluate clinical image quality included the Visual Grading Characteristics method, which helps to quantify subjective opinions to make them suitable for analysis.


RESULTS
The Dexis sensor was ranked significantly better than Sirona and Carestream-Kodak sensors; and the image captured using the Carestream-Kodak sensor was ranked significantly worse than those captured using Dexis, Schick and Cyber Medical Imaging sensors. The Image Works sensor image was rated the lowest by all clinicians. Other comparisons resulted in non-significant results.


CONCLUSIONS
None of the sensors was considered to generate images of significantly better quality than the other sensors tested. Further research should be directed towards determining the clinical significance of the differences in image quality reported in this study.
School of Dental Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Sorin
S
Teich
School of Dentistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Wisam
W
Al-Rawi
School of Dental Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Masahiro
M
Heima
School of Dental Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Fady F
FF
Faddoul
Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Gil
G
Goldzweig
School of Graduate Dentistry, Rambam Health Care Campus and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine - Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
Zvi
Z
Gutmacher
School of Graduate Dentistry, Rambam Health Care Campus and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine - Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. aizenbud@ortho.co.il.
Dror
D
Aizenbud
D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D008670:Metals; D010087:Oxides; D019252:Radiography, Dental, Digital / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012666:Semiconductors; D014965:X-Rays
D008670:Metals; D010087:Oxides
Imaging; Visual Grading Characteristics; complementary metal-oxide semiconductor; digital sensors; oral diagnosis