Effect of scattered x-rays on subject contrast and image sharpness

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the scattered x-rays on the subject contrast and image sharpness for various tube voltages. For the purpose, we measured the scatter-to-primary ratio(SPR) for the tube voltages f 50 to 100kV and obtained the tube voltage dependence of the subject contrast of an aluminum plate in a polymethyl methacrylate(PMMA) phantom. Furthermore, the overall modulation transfer functions(MTFs), which consist of MTFs of a screen-film system and scatter FTMs, were obtained for tube voltages of 50 to 100 kV. The subject contrast decreased with the tube voltage due to that the SPR increased with the tube voltage and that the difference in effective linear attenuation coefficients between the object and its surroundings decreased with the tube voltage. The maximum frequency of the overall MTF decreased from about 2 mm$\^$-1/ to 1 mm$\^$-1/ with the tube voltage increasing from 50 to 100 kV.