For more than a decade, the phenomenon of “exposure creep” in photostimulable storage phosphor imaging has been reported.1–3 This is attributed to the fact that digital imaging systems can produce adequate image contrast over a much broader range of exposure levels than screen-film imaging systems. This broad dynamic range is one of the benefits of digital detectors. However, if the detector is underexposed higher noise levels may obscure the presence of subtle
details in the image. Excessive detector exposures may produce high quality images with improved noise characteristics but at the expense of increased patient dose. In extreme
cases, excessive detector exposures may result in artifacts.As a result, most radiologists tend to complain about underexposed images but remain silent when images are acquired
at higher dose levels unless apparent saturation has occurred. Technologists quickly learn that they can produce images of better quality if they increase their exposure techniques, resulting
in less noisy images and avoiding radiologist complaints about noisy images. Average exposure levels tend to creep up over time if a clear indicator of exposure is not provided and routinely monitored.