Validation of an image simulation technique for two computed radiography systems: An application to neonatal imaging

The purpose of this study is to develop a computer model to simulate the image acquisition for two computed radiography (CR) imaging systems used for neonatal chest imaging. Monte Carlo techniques were used to simulate the transport of primary and scattered x rays in digital x-ray systems. The output of the Monte Carlo program was an image representing the energy absorbed in the detector material. This image was then modified using physical characteristics of the CR imaging systems to account for the signal intensity variations due to the heel effect along the anode-cathode axis, the spatial resolution characteristics of the imaging system, and the various sources of image noise. To evaluate the computer model, the authors compared the threshold-contrast detectability in simulated and experimentally acquired images of a contrast-detail phantom. Threshold-contrast curves were computed using a commercially available scoring program. The threshold-contrast curves of the simulated and experimentally acquired images show good agreement; for the two CR systems, 93% of the threshold diameters calculated from the simulated images fell within the confidence intervals of the threshold diameter calculated from the experimentally assessed images. Moreover, the superiority of needle based CR plates for neonatal imaging was confirmed.