Dynamic range control processing of digital chest images. A clinical evaluation.

Purpose: The clinical usefulness of an advanced image-processing system called "dynamic range control processing" was investigated, with which selected parts of the dynamic range of digital chest images could be controlled.

Material And Methods: A comparative study of 3 different post-processed formats of storage phosphor (SR) images was performed in 35 patients with abnormalities in the chest. The 3 formats were SR images with standard mode (SR-standard), SR images with strong edge-enhancement (SR-enhanced), and dynamic range controlled SR images (SR-controlled).

Results: For lung abnormalities, there was no difference among the 3 SR image formats. For normal mediastinal structures and lung abnormalities covered by the heart or diaphragm, SR-controlled and SR-enhanced images were significantly superior to SR-standard images, while no difference was found between SR-controlled and SR-enhanced images except for the trachea and bony structures.

Conclusion: Dynamic range control processing appears to be a useful method for displaying SR chest images with an extremely wide dynamic range.