TITLE:
CT Brain in Children: Evaluation of the Clinical and Radiological Findings
AUTHORS:
Awad Elkhadir, Mohamed Gotb, Deema Hussein, Mohamad Saka, Saddiq Jastaniah
KEYWORDS:
CT Brain, Radiology, Children, Clinical Diagnosis
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol.6 No.1,
March
8,
2016
ABSTRACT: This study was done to the review and documentation of brain CT investigations
in King Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAUH), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2012 including CT
findings for brain based on justifications for scan. The purpose of the study
is to evaluate the situation of requesting CT brain versus the reporting
findings. A retrospective study was carried out in the Department of Radiology, KAUH between 1
January and 31 December 2012. There were 417 children scanned by
CT for brain, their data were reviewed and analyzed from radiology records to
form the sample of the study. The study revealed that high percentages of radiological
findings for CT brain did not confirm the
clinical diagnosis. The percentages of such cases which observed in the three
departments of emergency, inpatient and outpatient were 68.4%, 53.6% and 49.4% respectively. This result shows that a percentage of children
were given unnecessary exposure to radiation among those who received CT brain from the radiology
department in KAUH. From the study, it is concluded that most brain CT done for
children were not justification as well as there were more brain CT findings not
confirmed the clinical diagnosis, although the brain CT may be significant in
most of the cases. Hence, there is a big concern about the increasing requests
for unnecessary brain CT. Therefore, the paediatricians should be more careful
in requesting of brain CT unless it is indispensible.