Digital systems are less sensitive to scatter radiation than film/screen systems.

• A. True
• B. False
• C. Not sure
• D. Both

Answer: (B)

Scatter radiation adds a uniform fog to the image, lowering contrast. Film-screen systems have a relatively limited dynamic range and depend on the film’s response and processing to render densities; while scatter hurts, grids and the film’s nonlinear response tend to blunt its visible impact to some degree. Digital detectors, on the other hand, respond linearly over a wide range of exposures, so scatter photons become part of the recorded signal across the whole image. When you adjust the window and level for display, the relative difference between structures is reduced more noticeably because the background from scatter has already been integrated into the image data. In short, scatter degrades digital images more than film-screen images, so the statement that digital systems are less sensitive to scatter is not correct.