Objective To analyze the quality control test results of medical digital radiography (DR) equipment in Liaoning Province in 2021 to 2022 and understand the quality status of DR equipment to provide a reference for the hospitals to strengthen the quality management of DR equipment.

Methods Using the convenient sampling method, 75 medical DR equipment in use in 59 hospitals in Liaoning Province from 2021 to 2022 were selected as the research objects. The relevant equipment was used in accordance with the WS76—2020 Specification for Testing of Quality Control in Medical X-ray Diagnostic Equipment to test the general and special items of DR equipment from different manufacturers, observe whether the DR equipment has automatic exposure control (AEC) function and damage, and whether the equipment can obtain preprocessed images and pixel values. An independent sample t-test was used to compare the detection indexes of general and special items on different brands of equipment. The Kruskal-Wallis H test was utilized to compare the detection indexes among different brands of equipment.

Results Among the 75 DR equipment, Siemens AG, Germany, accounted for 11% (8/75), Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare Co., Ltd. accounted for 38% (29/75), Beijing Wandong Medical Technology Co., Ltd. accounted for 13% (10/75), Neusoft Medical Systems Co., Ltd., Shenyang, accounted for 7% (5/75), and other companies accounted for 31% (23/75). The qualification rate of tube voltage indication and four side deviations between the light and irradiation fields detected by DR general testing projects in other companies is 96% (22/23). A total of 55% (41/75) of the equipment failed to detect AEC repeatability, AEC response, and consistency between AEC ionization chambers. In specialized testing projects, the qualification rate of ranging error in other companies is 88% (15/17) and that of other testing items is 100%. Meanwhile, 51% (38/75) of equipment cannot detect detector dose indication, signal transmission characteristics, and response uniformity. A total of 15% (11/75) of the tested equipment has no measuring tools, resulting in measurement errors that cannot be calculated. A total of 40% (30/75) of the equipment have high and low contrast resolutions based on the survey results as the baseline value. Except for the undetected equipment, the remaining equipment accounted for 26% (10/38) of the baseline values for detector dose indication based on the survey results. In the special test items, the qualified rate of distance measuring error in other companies was 88% (15/17) and that of other test items was 100%. No significant difference was observed between the general and special test indexes among brands of equipment (H=0.34–9.38, all P>0.05).

Conclusions The results suggested that the hospital should entrust qualified units to test the status of DR equipment annually to debug the equipment in time and ensure the accuracy of DR. At the same time, some DR equipment in hospitals lack detection functions and testing projects. The health administrative supervision department should provide standards for DR equipment testing in hospitals as soon as possible, and strengthen the supervision and inspection of DR equipment quality control.