Published online Jan 14, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i2.437
Peer-review started: June 14, 2021
First decision: October 18, 2021
Revised: October 25, 2021
Accepted: December 10, 2021
Article in press: December 10, 2021
Published online: January 14, 2022
Processing time: 211 Days and 4.7 Hours
Nowadays, digital imaging outweighs conventional imaging and has been used widely in dentistry. Digital radiography allows image manipulation to adjust the visual characteristics of the image, such as contrast, brightness, and density, thus enhancing image quality without the need to retake the image.
Digital imaging provides an easier, comfortable, and user-friendly way for recording and interpreting radiographic data for archiving and teleradiography.
To detect the frequency, type, and reasons behind the appearance of intraoral image artifacts acquired by photostimulable phosphor plates (PSP).
This retrospective descriptive study. A total of 50000 intraoral radiographs were retrieved from the clinical database from April 2018 to April 2020 to evaluate the reason, type, and solutions to these image artifacts.All intraoral digital radiographs were acquired using an intraoral X-ray machine with 7 -mA, 65-kVP using a PSP system and laser scanners, which can house all sizes of reusable intraoral PSP sensor plates with image acquisition software.
Imaging artifacts were divided into three categories; operator, plate, and scanning errors. Out of 3550 retakes, 5%, 1.37%, and 0.73% were related to the operator, plate, and scanning errors, respectively. The cone cut was the most common operator error (988 images), Bite marks were the most common plate error (276 images), and delayed scanning artifacts were the most common scanning errors (145 images).
Our study discussed intraoral image artifacts that were characteristic of PSP, where the most common artifacts were bitemarks, image size reduction, scratches, and delayed scanning.
Thus, recognizing intraoral radiographic image errors and defining the causes and their trouble-shooting are crucial factors in making images possess great clinical impacts.