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Development of quality control system for flat-panel detectors

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Abstract

The characteristics of flat-panel detectors (FPD) are degraded by exposure to radiation. Degradation in a FPD progresses locally and has a nonlinear relationship to the radiation dose. In order to manage FPD systems properly, one must perform quality control (QC) such as evaluation of image degradation. However, no evaluation method for degradation has been established. In this paper, we first review the structure and degradation mechanism of FPDs, and then we propose a daily QC system for FPDs. To evaluate the degradation of FPDs, we investigated the number of defective pixels and lines, as well as the offset level of the pixel output. Furthermore, we developed daily QC software for FPD that can evaluate the image quality and is operationally simple. In the experiments, an indirect-conversion type FPD was evaluated by our proposed system. The offset level of FPD increased exponentially with X-ray exposure; no trends were seen for the number of defective pixels and defective lines. The required time for the evaluation of an FPD was about 1 min, and no special skills were needed for the analysis. These results indicate that our system may be useful for daily QC of FPDs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Radiological Technology, School of Health Sciences, Fujita Health University, 1-98 Dengakugakubo, Kutsukake-cho, Toyoake, Aichi, 470-1192, Japan

    Atsushi Teramoto, Takahiko Kajihara & Shoichi Suzuki

  2. Department of Radiology, Banbuntane Soutokukai Hospital, 3-6-10 Ogashirabashi, Nakagawa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 454-8509, Japan

    Kazuo Kinoshita

  3. Department of Radiological Technology, School of Health Sciences, Nagoya University, 1-1-20 Daikominami, Higashi-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 461-8673, Japan

    Masatoshi Tsuzaka

  4. Department of Intelligent Image Information, Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu, Gifu, 501-1194, Japan

    Hiroshi Fujita

Authors
  1. Atsushi Teramoto
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  2. Takahiko Kajihara
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  3. Shoichi Suzuki
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  4. Kazuo Kinoshita
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  5. Masatoshi Tsuzaka
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  6. Hiroshi Fujita
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Atsushi Teramoto.

Additional information

A part of this study was reported at the 65th and 66th general meeting of the JSRT.

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Teramoto, A., Kajihara, T., Suzuki, S. et al. Development of quality control system for flat-panel detectors. Radiol Phys Technol 4, 164–172 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-011-0117-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-011-0117-2

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