Abstract:Objective To explore the application value of soft-copy reading with professional medical display in chest direct digital radiography (DR) diagnosis of senile pneumonia. Methods The imaging data of 162 cases of senile pneumonia who admitted to Tangshan Gongren Hospital from January 2012 to December 2015 were analyzed retrospectively, whose chest films were read by two radiologists respectively using traditional light- box reading and soft-copy reading with professional medical display to compare the difference between two different diagnostic methods in elderly patients with pneumonia. Results The accuracy rates of soft-copy reading and traditional light box reading were 92.9% and 78.8% respectively for lobar pneumonia, 88.4% and 81.4% respectively for mycoplasma pneumonia, 100.0% and 97.0% respectively for interstitial pneumonia and 0% for pneumonia lung cancer. There were no significant differences between soft-copy reading and light box reading in the diagnosis of mycoplasma pneumonia, interstitial pneumonia and pneumonia-type lung cancer (all P>0.05), except in the diagnosis of lobar pneumonia (P=0.008). Conclusion Compared with traditional light-box reading, soft-copy reading with professional display has advantage in DR chest film diagnosis of senile lobar pneumonia, and both have the same value in the diagnosis of senile mycoplasma pneumonia and interstitial pneumonia.