We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Ultra-low-dose CT for extremities in an acute setting: initial experience with 203 subjects.
- Authors
Alagic, Zlatan; Bujila, Robert; Enocson, Anders; Srivastava, Subhash; Koskinen, Seppo K.
- Abstract
<bold>Objective: </bold>The purpose of this study was to assess if ultra-low-dose CT is a useful clinical alternative to digital radiographs in the evaluation of acute wrist and ankle fractures.<bold>Materials and Methods: </bold>An ultra-low-dose protocol was designed on a 256-slice multi-detector CT. Patients from the emergency department were evaluated prospectively. After initial digital radiographs, an ultra-low-dose CT was performed. Two readers independently analyzed the images. Also, the radiation dose, examination time, and time to preliminary report was compared between digital radiographs and CT.<bold>Results: </bold>In 207 extremities, digital radiography and ultra-low-dose CT detected 73 and 109 fractures, respectively (p < 0.001). The odds ratio for fracture detection with ultra-low-dose CT vs. digital radiography was 2.0 (95% CI, 1.4-3.0). CT detected additional fracture-related findings in 33 cases (15.9%) and confirmed or ruled out suspected fractures in 19 cases (9.2%). The mean effective dose was comparable between ultra-low-dose CT and digital radiography (0.59 ± 0.33 μSv, 95% CI 0.47-0.59 vs. 0.53 ± 0.43 μSv, 95% CI 0.54-0.64). The mean combined examination time plus time to preliminary report was shorter for ultra-low-dose CT compared to digital radiography (7.6 ± 2.5 min, 95% CI 7.1-8.1 vs. 9.8 ± 4.7 min, 95% CI 8.8-10.7) (p = 0.002). The recommended treatment changed in 34 (16.4%) extremities.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Ultra-low-dose CT is a useful alternative to digital radiography for imaging the peripheral skeleton in the acute setting as it detects significantly more fractures and provides additional clinically important information, at a comparable radiation dose. It also provides faster combined examination and reporting times.
- Subjects
RADIOGRAPHY; RADIOGRAPHS; RADIATION doses; ODDS ratio; DIGITAL image processing
- Publication
Skeletal Radiology, 2020, Vol 49, Issue 4, p531
- ISSN
0364-2348
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1007/s00256-019-03309-7