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An Alternative ‘Viewing Box’ for Hand X-rays

Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7EH, UK, E-mail: tomre13{at}yahoo.com

Dear Sir,

Accurate interpretation of hard-copy X-rays depends on several factors, including the consistency of spatial illumination brightness of viewing boxes (Alter et al., 1982). To maximise visual acuity, it is important that the retinal cones receive an incident luminance of 100 cd m^–2 (Quality Criteria, 1990). X-ray viewing boxes of adequate quality are not always available (McCarthy and Brennan, 2003).

The author would like to suggest an alternative light projecting media for viewing X-rays, namely, the personnel computer plasma screen monitor. These are readily available and have a uniform brightness level of 200 cd m^–2 across the screen. A computer screen is adequate to display small films such as hand X-rays (Fig 1).

View larger version (96K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig 1 A photograph of a fifth metacarpal neck fracture X-ray placed against a monitor screen (opened against a white background of a blank Word Document page).

	References

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Alter A, Kargas GA, Kargas SA, Cameron JR, McDermott JC The influence of ambient and viewbox light upon visual detection of low contrast targets in a radiograph Investigative Radiology 1982 17 402 406.[Web of Science][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]

Journal of Hand Surgery (European Volume), Vol. 33, No. 1, 88 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1753193407087123


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This Article Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Reisler, T. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Reisler, T. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?