Interpretation of the chest radiograph

The traditional technique used in the acquisition and development of a chest radiograph uses methods similar to those discovered by Roentgen in 1895. The film is exposed, developed, coded, and placed in a packet, and stored for review. However, with the advent of digital radiography and the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), the technique has significantly changed. This allows the images to be viewed remotely and manipulated via a workstation by clinicians in different locations, almost as soon as they are acquired. The radiation dose of a chest X-ray is very small (0.2 mSv). We receive 13 times this dose (2.6 mSv) annually from natural background radiation emitted fro