Value of bone suppression software in chest radiographs for improving image quality and reducing radiation dose

• Published in: European radiology 2021-07, Vol.31 (7), p.5160-5171
• Main Authors: Hong, Gil-Sun, Do, Kyung-Hyun, Son, A-Yeon, Jo, Kyung-Wook, Kim, Kwang Pyo, Yun, Jihye, Lee, Choong Wook
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chest; Computer programs; Diagnostic Radiology; Energy; Image processing; Image quality; Imaging; Internal Medicine; Interventional Radiology; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Neuroradiology; Radiation; Radiation dosage; Radiographs; Radiography; Radiology; Signal to noise ratio; Similarity; Soft tissues; Software; Subtraction; Tissues; Ultrasound
• ISSN: 0938-7994; 1432-1084
• DOI: 10.1007/s00330-020-07596-w

Objectives To compare image quality and radiation dose between dual-energy subtraction (DES)–based bone suppression images (D-BSIs) and software-based bone suppression images (S-BSIs). Methods Chest radiographs (CXRs) of forty adult patients were obtained with the two X-ray devices, one with DES and one with bone suppression software. Three image quality metrics (relative mean absolute error (RMAE), peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), and structural similarity index (SSIM)) between original CXR and BSI for each of D-BSI and S-SBI groups were calculated for each bone and soft tissue areas. Two readers rated the visual image quality for original CXR and BSI for each of D-BSI and S-SBI groups. The dose area product (DAP) values were recorded. Paired t test was used to compare the image quality and DAP values between D-BSI and S-BSI groups. Results In bone areas, S-BSIs had better SSIM values than D-BSI (94.57 vs. 87.77) but worse RMAE and PSNR values (0.50 vs. 0.20; 20.93 vs. 34.37) (all p