An investigation of the influence of radiographic malpositioning and image processing algorithm selection on ICU/CCU chest radiographs.

摘要

Mobile chest radiography remains the most appropriate test for critical careudpatients with cardiorespiratory changes and with patients who have chest tubesudand lines as a monitoring tool, and to detect complications related to their use.udHowever, one of the most frequent issues recognized radiographically withudpatients in critical care is chest tubes and lines malposition. This can be related toudtechnical quality reasons which can affect their appearance in the chestudradiography.udThis research considers how the technical quality of the ICU/CCU chest radiographyudcan impact upon the appearance of chest tubes/lines and how that appearance canudimpact on the decision making.udResults show that the methods used in the chest phantom experiment to estimateudthe degree of angulation have a large effect upon the appearance of anatomicaludstructures, but it does not have a particularly large effect upon the apparentudchanges of tube/line position central venous catheter and endotracheal tube (CVC,udETT).udThe study also shows that there was a little difference between the two imageudprocessing algorithms, apart from the visualisation of sharp reproduction of theudtrachea and proximal bronchi, which was significantly better using the standardudalgorithm compared to the inverted algorithm.udThe two methods used to estimate the degree of angulation and the apparentudposition of the CVC/ETT on 17 mobile chest radiographs provide limited usefuludinformation to the image interpreter in estimating the degree of angulation anduddegree of malpositioning of the tube and line.