Measurement accuracy as a measure of image quality in compressed MR chest scans

We investigated the effects of lossy image compression on measurement accuracy in magnetic resonance images. Thirty chest scans were compressed to five different levels using predictive pruned tree-structured vector quantization (predictive PTSVQ). Three radiologists measured the diameters of the four principal blood vessels on each image. Errors were analyzed relative to both an independent standard and personal performance on uncompressed images. Data were compared with both t and Wilcoxon tests. We conclude that for the purpose of measuring blood vessels in the chest, there is no significant difference in measurement accuracy when images are compressed up to 16:1 with predictive PTSVQ.<>