The use of the right decubitus position in computed tomography of the liver and pancreas.

Sixty patients underwent computed tomography (CT) with a 20 s scanner of the upper abdomen in the supine and right decubitus positions. The images of the liver were compared. The scores for the hepatic image were better when the patient was in the right decubitus position. The scores for the image of the pancreatic head were about the same in the two positions but improvement occurred in the right decubitus position in nearly half the patients. Scores for the other parts of the pancreas and for the pancreas as a whole were usually worse when in the right decubitus position although improvement did sometimes occur. Scanning in the right decubitus position has been demonstrated to be of value in reducing artefact shadows in the hepatic image and may on occasions improve the quality of the pancreatic image. Accordingly scanning in the right decubitus position is a useful aid when supine views have given poor results or when the presence of a lesion is equivocal.