Evaluation of degradation and exhaustion of radiographic developer in relation to the number of processed films: study based on the quality of radiographic images

Abstract

The aim in this paper was to evaluate the time of use of the pro- cessing solutions and the amount of radiographic films that may be processed in this same processing solution, without being changed, before the occurrence of degrada- tion and exhaustion of these liqui- ds. The evaluation method was the subjective analysis of quality of radiographic images. For this, 269 periapical films Ektaspeed Plus Kodak of E sensitivity group were used and divided into 2 groups: degradation and exhaustion. The films were processed in portable darkroom under room light with fluorescent light bulbs to simu- late normal conditions of work in dental clinic. After processing and drying, the films were eva- luated by 5 (five) students of the Post-Graduation course in Dental Radiology at FOSJC - UNESP by the subjective method of grades. It was possible to establish that for the degradation group the worse grades (K <1) were given from the film number 43. For the exhaus- tion group the worse grades were attributed from the 192nd radio- graph (K = 1,8), however, in this group, the radiographs within the numbers 192 up to 210 were clas- sified as having good quality for interpretation. We conclude that the degradation of the developer occurred from the 21st day of the beginning of the experiment, ob- served in the 43rd radiograph, and for the exhaustion group, it was observed from the 192nd de- veloped radiograph, which occur- red on the 9th day from the begin- ning of the research. Key-words: degradation, exhaus- tion, radiographic processing, den- tal radiograph, radiograph films.