Avian and exotics veterinarians are some of the most demanding users of radiography in the vet world. Traditionally, avian and exotics applications used mammography film to improve the spatial resolution of radiographic images. Avian and exotics veterinarians (understandably) have been slow to embrace digital radiography as they are skeptical of the ability of these systems to provide adequate spatial resolution for their applications.
Of particular concern to the avian and exotics community was the ability of DR systems to provide them the resolution they need. This concern is understandable given our early (poor) experience with DR flat panel detectors and CCD systems in veterinary medicine.
In a recent article published in The Journal of Veterinary Radiology and Ultrasound titled “Comparison of the image quality of a high resolution screen film system and a digital flat panel detector system in Avian Radiography," the authors concluded “for the majority of criteria [tested] there was no significant difference regarding image quality between digital and screen-film projections. However, for certain criteria the quality of the digital images was significantly superior.”
The hardware used in this study was the Varian Paxscan 4030E. As the authors advised in this study, “the quality of the image processing software should always be considered when choosing a digital system.”
We [Animal Insides] are unsure how the hardware and software combination used in this study compares to other digital systems. Veterinarians should be careful when extrapolating the results of this study to other digital systems.
Reference: VRUS, Vol. 52, No. 3, 2011, pp 256-261.