CT Brain in Children: Evaluation of the Clinical and Radiological Findings

This study was done to the review and documentation of brain CT investigations in King Abdulaziz University Hospital (KAUH), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2012 including CT findings for brain based on justifications for scan. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the situation of requesting CT brain versus the reporting findings. A retrospective study was carried out in the Department of Radiology, KAUH between 1 January and 31 December 2012. There were 417 children scanned by CT for brain, their data were reviewed and analyzed from radiology records to form the sample of the study. The study revealed that high percentages of radiological findings for CT brain did not confirm the clinical diagnosis. The percentages of such cases which observed in the three departments of emergency, inpatient and outpatient were 68.4%, 53.6% and 49.4% respectively. This result shows that a percentage of children were given unnecessary exposure to radiation among those who received CT brain from the radiology department in KAUH. From the study, it is concluded that most brain CT done for children were not justification as well as there were more brain CT findings not confirmed the clinical diagnosis, although the brain CT may be significant in most of the cases. Hence, there is a big concern about the increasing requests for unnecessary brain CT. Therefore, the paediatricians should be more careful in requesting of brain CT unless it is indispensible.