Assessment of the diagnostic quality of the digital display monitors at the dental clinics of a university hospital

Background: In contemporary health care, monitor displays are important devices that help clinicians in reading and understanding diagnostic images including radiographs. Image quality and observer performance could be compromised if the performance of monitor is below the known standards. Objectives: To estimate the parameters of diagnostic quality of digital display monitors (using AAPM TG-18 criteria) installed at the dental clinics of a university hospital. Materials and methods: A survey was carried out on a convenience sample of forty-four diagnostic monitor displays currently being used for radiographic interpretation at dental clinics of a university hospital. A calibrated photometer (BARCO V950-180, USA) comprising of different test patterns and reference standards developed by the AAPM TG18 and DICOM part 14 GSDF were used on the monitors to assess their diagnostic image quality. It is a scale which consists of five parameters that labels monitors into two categories: primary grade or secondary grade. Data was reported as frequencies of the five parameters of imaging. Results: Of the 44 monitors assessed, none fulfilled the primary grade criteria. All monitors fulfilled the parameters for secondary grade display except the luminance response for which only 16/44 monitors passed the criteria. There was an excellent agreement between the assessors for the image quality parameters; kappa: 0.92. Conclusions: Within the limitations of this study, it is concluded that all monitors at dental clinics were of secondary grade and the only parameter in which majority of the monitors failed, was the luminance response.