Publication Date
2018
Document Type
Thesis
Committee Members
Steven Cartwright (Committee Member), Brent Foy (Advisor), Sarah Tebbens (Committee Member)
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Abstract
In the clinical medical physics field, Quality Assurance (QA) is a fundamental topic to insure patient safety and effective treatment. In recent years, the imaging hardware for diagnostic x-rays has been shifting to fully digital detectors. However, the quality assurance tests for such detectors in the clinical setting is still under development. In the Medical Imaging Department of Kettering Hospital (Kettering, OH), the currently accepted method of performing QA on detectors is to use an extensive set of tests suggested by the manufacturer. This set of tests requires about 90 minutes, which is too long for daily use. The goal of this thesis is to begin the process of developing a more efficient QA routine. A subset of the manufacturer's tests was selected and used either unchanged or were modified to make them more efficient. To increase confidence that the tests chosen were universally useful, two different models of digital imaging detectors, DX-D 40 and DR 14s from Agfa (Agfa-Gevaert, Mortsel, Belgium), and 4 different x-ray units were investigated. The tests included a uniformity test, a spatial resolution test, a low contrast test, a dynamic range test, and a linearity test. This last test evaluated each detector over a range of energy and intensity in a short time. The results indicated that the detectors functioned as expected under a wide range of conditions. In addition, these results set a baseline for performance of the detectors that will be useful in regular QA in the hospital setting.
Page Count
63
Department or Program
Department of Physics
Year Degree Awarded
2018
Copyright
Copyright 2018, some rights reserved. My ETD may be copied and distributed only for non-commercial purposes and may not be modified. All use must give me credit as the original author.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
