In the emergency department (ED), non-contrast head CTs are routinely acquired for patients with neurologic symptoms. Anecdotally, non-contrast head CTs performed in patients with prior negative findings on CTs performed for the same clinical indication are of low diagnostic yield. As such, a team of scientists led by the UC San Francisco Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging’s Neuroradiology Section evaluated the rate of findings in patients who received serial head CTs in the emergency department. They hypothesized that the rate of acute findings in non-contrast head CTs performed in patients with a preceding negative study performed for a similar indication would be lower compared with patients being imaged for the first time or for a new indication. Findings were recently published in the American Journal of Neuroradiology (AJNR).
“The paper shows that…
