Purpose: To compare the accuracy of digital luminescence radiography (DLR) and conventional film-screen radiography (FSR) in diagnosing fractures.
Material and method: Both conventional and digital radiographs were acquired from a consecutive series of 57 patients with suspected wrist or hand fractures. The digital images were obtained with a 30% dose reduction. A ROC-analysis (receiver-operating characteristics) was performed.
Results: The area under the curve was 0.89 for conventional FSR, 0.93 for DLR, "gray scale" and 0.94 for DLR, "edge enhanced".
Conclusions: Although its spatial resolution is lower, DLR provided better results than conventional FSR, when contrast processing algorithms were optimised for the specific clinical question. The edge-enhanced version was superior to the non-edge enhanced version. The reason for this seems to be the higher contrast resolution of DLR compared to FSR.