Abstract
Introduction: Radiographer´s usual role in the medical imaging chain is to acquire relevant and qualitatively good images that help the radiologist or physician to diagnose most accurately. After the image acquisition, the radiographer does a quality evaluation based on established imaging criteria to decide if the image is satisfactory, or otherwise reject it and subsequently take a new one. Contrary to expectations that the number of image rejects should decrease substantially with the introduction of digital imaging, a number of studies have shown that it has not, although the reasons for rejects has changed from exposure errors to positioning and centring errors. Very little research has been on examining how radiographers visually perceive and evaluate the X-ray images in this acceptance/rejection process.Purpose: Investigate how radiographers and radiography students visually perceives X-ray images in the process of accepting or rejecting them on basis of radiographic imaging criteria, and see if there are differences in strategies across experience levels.Materials and methods: Three radiography students and five radiographers with varying years of experience were given the task of accepting or rejecting shoulder and knee projection images based on positioning criteria. Using eye tracking, we measured the participants’ number and duration of gaze fixations within 1) the field of view defined by the monitor display, 2) the part of the monitor displaying the X-ray image only, and 3) the region within the X-ray images considered to be most relevant given the imaging criteria task. The quantitative eye-tracking measurements were followed-up by four qualitative questions.Results: Some differences in fixation patterns between the groups were found; the medium experienced radiographers spent statistically significant lesser number of fixations and lesser average single fixation durations than both the radiography students and the most experienced radiographers did, whereas the two latter groups scored almost equally. Conclusion: The study revealed that work experience might have some influence on how radiographers and radiography students assess X-ray images, but in subtler ways than expected. The study also revealed, however, quite large individual differences across experience.
Highlights
Radiographers usual role in the medical imaging chain is to acquire relevant and qualitatively good images that help the radiologist or physician to diagnose most accurately
Images Two different skeletal X-ray imaging protocols were chosen for this study, Bontragers “Lateral knee” [19] and Movin and Karlssons “Elevated shoulder” [20] projection imaging, respectively, chosen because they are used by the hospital and because they represent imaging procedures known to have high image rejects rates [7]
The seemingly quite “random” search patterns as seen in Figure 1, all participants seemed to focus mostly on the most important regions of the images with regards to the radiographic imaging criteria. This is why we collected the results in terms of the number and duration of eye fixations within predefined regions of interest (ROIs), neglecting the actual sequence of the fixations
Summary
Radiographers usual role in the medical imaging chain is to acquire relevant and qualitatively good images that help the radiologist or physician to diagnose most accurately. One of radiographers roles in the imaging chain is to produce optimal images in order for the radiologist or doctor to make an accurate diagnosis To this end an important task is to decide whether to upload a newly taken image to the PACS, or reject it and acquire a new one. A number of studies have shown that image reject /retake rates decreased substantially with the introduction of digital imaging, from 10-15 % to 3-5 % [1,2,3,4], mainly because exposure errors almost completely vanished, Later studies, have indicated that due to increasing occurrences of image positioning and centring errors, reject/retake rates once more have increased [5,6,7]. There are several studies where radiographers themselves act as diagnostic reporters, in for instance CT imaging [11] and conventional (planar/ skeletal/ projected) X-ray imaging [12,13,14,15], but these are other types of imaging tasks than accepting/ rejecting
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
