Society of abdominal radiology gastrointestinal bleeding disease-focused panel consensus recommendations for CTA technical parameters in the evaluation of acute overt gastrointestinal bleeding.

PURPOSE

To formulate consensus recommendations for CT angiography technical parameters used to evaluate overt gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding.

METHODS

An electronic questionnaire consisting of 17 questions was sent to a panel of 16 radiologists with expertise on the imaging of GI bleeding from the Society of Abdominal Radiology GI Bleeding disease-focused panel to obtain consensus agreement on issues related to CTA technical parameters for imaging overt GI bleeding. A multi-round Delphi method of voting was performed to obtain consensus which was defined as ≥ 80% agreement.

RESULTS

Consensus agreement was reached in 15/17 (89%) of the questions including the technique for the administration of IV contrast, the number of phases, scan timing, and image reconstruction.

CONCLUSIONS

A panel of experts on the imaging of GI bleeding from the Society of Abdominal Radiology was able to reach consensus on the majority of technical parameters used for CTA of overt GI bleeding. These recommendations should improve the quality of patient care by adopting these minimal technical requirements for optimal exam performance and lead to less variation in the performance of these exams which will facilitate collecting and comparing published data from different centers. These recommendations will need revisions as additional scientific data become available.