Establishment and Application of Posteroanterior Chest Radiograph Quality Control Evaluation System Based on AHP-FCE

Objective To explore the feasibility of a posteroanterior (PA) chest radiograph quality control evaluation system with different weights and quantification in the evaluation elements.

Methods The related data of PA chest radiograph evaluation elements were collected, and the PA chest radiograph analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) evaluation system was established by AHP and FCE. The system evaluated 60 PA chest radiographs extracted from different devices and finally conducted a statistical analysis of the evaluation results to clarify the effectiveness of the evaluation system.

Results The evaluation system was divided into three modules, which were body position evaluation, image post-processing evaluation, and image overall evaluation. The weight indexes were as follows: 0.419 7, 0.311 0, and 0.269 4, respectively. The consistency of the weights was tested by consistent ratio (CR) value. The CR value of each element was between 0.000 0~0.098 2, and the CR value was less than 0.10, reflecting the rationality of the matrix. The consistency test of the evaluation results (scoring) included each expert (interclass correlation coefficient (ICC)=0.882, P < 0.001; repeated scoring by the same expert (expert A: ICC=0.867, expert B: ICC=0.915, P < 0.001); each age group: 20~40 years old (ICC=0.895, P < 0.001), 41~60 years old (ICC=0.859, P < 0.001), 61~80 years old (ICC=0.890, P < 0.001); gender: male (ICC=0.829, P < 0.001), female (ICC=0.924, P < 0.001); negative/positive: negative (ICC=0.826, P < 0.001), positive (ICC=0.893, P < 0.001); model: GE definium 6000 Type score (ICC=0.887, P < 0.001), Philips Digital Diagnost TH+VS model score (ICC=0.919, P < 0.001), Siemens Aristos Axiom model score (ICC=0.837, P < 0.001); all can reflect good consistency. The consistency test of individual and overall evaluation levels showed average consistency (Kappa=0.41, P < 0.001).

Conclusions The new PA chest radiograph evaluation system established by AHP-FCE in this study can reflect the importance of different evaluation factors on image quality and quantify the evaluation. It can reflect the image quality more objectively, and the evaluation results were consistent and reliable, with high repeatability and high practicability.