Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
CT scans not necessary for all children's brain injuries
A new study shows that many of the high radiation CT scans that are done on children who had hit their heads are unnecessary, according to The New York Times. The study was recently published in The Lancet Journal and looked at 42,412 children ages 18 and younger who were seen in emergency rooms after suffering mild head injuries, said the article. Of those children, only 5% of the CT scans picked up traumatic brain injuries.
According to The Lancet,, CT imaging of head-injured children has risks of radiation-induced malignancy, and the purpose of the study was to make sure there were guidelines doctors could follow to determine which children to conduct the scans. The paper in the Lancet offered six indicators to help doctors determine whether a child was at risk for a serious brain injury, and had a separate list of indicators for children under age two.
Among these indicators are:
- Altered mental state
- Signs of a skull fracture
- Loss of consciousness
- Involved in a serious incident like a car crash
- Vomiting
- Headaches
- Swelling of the scalp
- Abnormal behavior
According to the Times, of the children under two who were scanned, one fourth had none of the six indicators, and 21% of the older children scanned had none of the indicators.
The principal investigator of the study, Dr. Nathan Kuppermann, said in the Times that doctors should not do a CT scan for child without these indicators.
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