Spatial Resolution Requirements in Digital Radiography of Scaphoid Fractures

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the spatial resolution requirements in digital radiography of scaphoid fractures. Material and Methods: Included in the study were 60 scaphoid radiographs with and 60 without fractures of the scaphoid bone. The film-screen images were digitized using pixel sizes of 115, 170, and 340 μm along with 170 μm with a 10; 1 wavelet compression. The digital images were displayed on a 1280×1024×8 bits monitor, and 5 observers evaluated the images in 5 randomized sessions. The results for each pixel size were then compared to the film-screen images by ROC analysis. Results: The mean area under the ROC curves was larger for the film-screen images than for the digital images at all resolutions. However, this difference was not significant when the areas under the ROC curves for the film-screen images were compared to the digital images of 115, 170, and 170 μm with 10: 1 compression. There was a significant difference for the 340-μm pixel size in favour of the film-screen images. The mean ROC curves for the digital images were very similar for the 115 and 170 μm pixel sizes, although slightly better for 115 μm. At 170 μm, the compression seemed to have a relatively small negative effect on the diagnostic performance; the deterioration was greater when the pixel size was increased to 340 μm. There was no obvious correlation between diagnostic performance and the experience of the observers in using workstations. Conclusion: The pixel size of 170 μm is adequate for the detection of subtle fractures, even after wavelet compression by a ratio of 10:1.