Computed Radiographic Evaluation of Simulated Pulmonary Nodules: Preliminary Results

Newell JD, Seeley G, Hagaman RM, Nishikawa M, Nakagawa K, Kakegawa M, Ovitt TW, Pond GD, Capp MP. Computed radiographic evaluations of simulated pulmonary nodulespreliminary results. Invest Radiol 1988;23:267–270.We evaluated the capabilities of a computed radiography system (CRS) and a standard radiography system (SRS) in the detection of simulated solitary pulmonary lung nodules of various sizes and contrast. A phantom simulated the pulmonary anatomy, and specially shaped plexiglass disks were externally mounted to simulate solitary pulmonary nodules of different diameters and thicknesses. ROC curves were generated based on the performance of each of the radiologists observing each film set. In this preliminary study, the overall performance for both the CRS and the SRS were comparable in detecting simulated pulmonary nodules.