Hoppe Hanno, Vock Peter, Bonel Harald Marcel, Ozdoba Christoph, Gralla Jan
Department of Interventional and Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital of Bern, Freiburgstrasse 4, CH-3010, Bern, Switzerland.
Emerg Radiol. 2006 Dec;13(3):123-8. doi: 10.1007/s10140-006-0490-z. Epub 2006 Oct 13.
Emergency CT examination is considered to be a trade-off between a short scan time and the acceptance of artifacts. This study evaluates the influence of patient repositioning on artifacts and scan time. Eighty-three consecutive multiple-trauma patients were included in this prospective study. Patients were examined without repositioning (group 1, n=39) or with patient rotation to feet-first with arms raised for scanning the chest and abdomen/pelvis (group 2, n=44). The mean scan time was 21 min in group 1 and 25 min in group 2 (P=0.01). The mean repositioning time in group 2 was 8 min. Significantly, more artifacts were observed in group 1 (with a repeated scan in 7%) than in group 2 (P=0.0001). This novel multiple- trauma CT-scanning protocol with patient repositioning achieves a higher image quality with significantly fewer artifacts than without repositioning but increases scan time slightly.
