부산대학교 도서관

Objectives: To evaluate a digital rotational panoramic radiography system with a full frame transfer charge-coupled device in terms of skin dose and image quality.Materials and Methods: The J. Morita Corporation (Kyoto, Japan) developed a new digital rotational panoramic radiography system called the veraview epocs x-550. We compared a prototype of this new machine to a conventionaol rotational panoramic radiography system (the veraview x-500, J. Morita Co.). Skin dose was measured with a Rand phantom with attached TLDs and skin dose of each system were then compared. In order to compare image quality, six oral and maxillofacial radiologists evaluated the image quality of anatomical radiographic landmarks on both the digital and film images. The digital images were displayed on a CRT and the film images were observed on a viewing box.Results: The skin/dose of the digital system was about half that of the conventional system but the image quality of the conventional system was better than that of the digital system although this difference was not statistically significant (Student's t-test, p>0.05).Conclusion: The skin dose of the new digital rotational panoramic radiography system is about half that of the conventional film system and the quality of the digital images is almost as good as that of the film images. This will allow a reduction in radiation doses in future clinical practice.