Objective: The objective of this study was to compare dental radiographs printed on glossy paper from calibrated low-cost printers with monitor display.
Study design: Three typical intraoral radiographs were selected and a questionnaire was developed with questions assessing accuracy and subjective quality. A test pattern was designed for printer calibration. After calibration, radiographs were printed on glossy paper with 3 ink-jet and 2 thermo-sublimation printers. Sixteen raters evaluated the printed radiographs, 9 of them also on standardized viewing monitors. Subjective ratings were compared, and an ROC-analysis based on expert-consensus monitor readings was performed.
Results: Low inter-rater reproducibility (mean Cohen's Kappa monitor: 0.49; printers: 0.44), but high diagnostic accuracy was found for all printers (areas [Az] underneath the ROC curves: 0.725 to 0.884). The overlap between the 95% Az confidence intervals of the mean indicate no significant differences.
Conclusion: Our preliminary findings indicate that dental radiographs may be evaluated on glossy paper prints of calibrated customary printers.