Vascular Injuries From Head/Neck Trauma Found with CTA
The Radiological Society of North America 2007 meeting included a debate about the best approach for imaging patients who experienced trauma to the head and neck. Experts, however, do agree that the ideal imaging modality is multislice CT angiography (CTA). The debate centered on use of head and neck imaging alone or whole body scans to assess for the presence of vascular injuries. Details were published by Diagnostic Imaging.
New data presented at the meeting indicates that the rate of detecting blunt cervical vascular injury (BCVI) has increased. These rates vary dependent upon criteria used to determine if patients require imaging. Importantly, the specific injuries are a critical factor in determining whether a patient is likely to have a vascular injury. Those patients with a high likelihood of cerebrovascular injury (CVI) should, most certainly, undergo scanning.
Research detailed at the meeting which assessed patients with multisystem trauma indicated that the ideal approach to assess for the presence of BCVI is whole-body MSCT. Other researchers who presented at the meeting compared findings obtained with focused CTA and whole-body CTA (WBCTA) in patients with only head and neck trauma.
Researchers from Milan indicated that WBCTA and focused CTA had similar levels of diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. Their analysis included over one thousand patients who experienced trauma to the head and neck.
Overall, available data otherwise described at the conference suggests that whole body MSCT is the most time-efficient means to assess injuries, in addition exposing patients to a lower dose of radiation compared to focused CT. An additional beenfit of whole body MSCT is that parenchymal and vascular structures can be imaged at the same time. Scan time requires almost half the time of focused CTA.
November 28, 2007 Related topics: Imaging, Diagnostic, Otolaryngology, Emergency