To CT or Not to CT: Risks of Missed Brain Injury vs. Radiation Exposure in Young Children

For children <2 years of age, the benefit of computed tomography outweighs the risk of malignancy only for those at highest risk for brain injury.

Computed tomography (CT) imaging decisions for children <2 years of age with minor blunt head trauma must balance the risk of radiation-associated malignancies against the risk of missed clinically important traumatic brain injuries (ciTBI, defined as head injury resulting in death or requiring neurosurgery, endotracheal intubation for >24 hours, or hospital admission for ≥2 nights). Using data from the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) cohort of children <2 years of age with blunt head trauma and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores of 14 or 15, researchers performed decision analyses to evaluate two strategies: imaging all patients or imaging no patients. Analyses were performed for the entire cohort and for a subgroup…

Reviewing Author

Katherine Bakes, MD

Disclosures

RoyaltiesEmergency Medicine Secrets (Elsevier)

Grant/Research SupportDepartment of Justice

Editorial BoardsEmergency Medicine Secrets (Elsevier); Rosen’s Emergency Medicine (Elsevier)

Katherine Bakes, MD

Disclosures

RoyaltiesEmergency Medicine Secrets (Elsevier)

Grant/Research SupportDepartment of Justice

Editorial BoardsEmergency Medicine Secrets (Elsevier); Rosen’s Emergency Medicine (Elsevier)