Optimum Image Compression Rate Maintaining Diagnostic Image Quality of Digital Intraoral Radiographs

Purpose: The aims of the present study are to determine the optimum compression rate in terms of file size reduction and diagnostic quality of the images after compression and evaluate the transmission speed of original or each compressed image. Materials and Methods: The material consisted of 24 extracted human premolars and molars. The occlusal surfaces and proximal surfaces of the teeth had a clinical disease spectrum that ranged from sound to varying degrees of fissure discoloration and cavitation. The images from Digora system were exported in TIFF and the images from conventional intraoral film were scanned and digitalized in TIFF by Nikon SF-200 scanner (Nikon, Japan). And six compression factors were chosen and applied on the basis of the results from a pilot study. The total number of images to be assessed were 336. Three radiologists assessed the occlusal and proximal surfaces of the teeth with 5-rank scale. Finally diagnosed as either sound or carious lesion by one expert oral pathologist. And sensitivity, specificity and k value for diagnostic agreement was calculated. Also the area (Az) values under the ROC curve were calculated and paired t-test and oneway ANOVA test was performed. Thereafter, transmission time of the image files of the each compression level was compared with that of the original image files. Results: No significant difference was found between original and the corresponding images up to 7% (1 : 14) compression ratio for both the occlusal and proximal caries (p<0.05). JPEG3 (1 : 14) image files are transmitted fast more than 10 times, maintained diagnostic information in image, compared with original image files. Conclusion: 1 : 14 compressed image file may be used instead of the original image and reduce storage needs and transmission time.