J Radiol
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Blunt chest traumas are a major concern in the setting of high-speed deceleration accidents, since they are associated with a high mortality rate. However, their prompt diagnosis and treatment allows for significant improvement of blunt chest trauma patient's clinical prognosis. If chest radiograph remains the initial screening test, the role of CT is increasing since it provides fast, sensitive, accurate and exhaustive survey of blunt chest trauma patients. The purpose of this article is to review the various radiological and CT patterns of blunt chest lesions.
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Subglottic area injuries after prolonged endotracheal intubation are relatively frequent but cricoid cartilage necrosis is rare, with uncertain prognosis. Endoscopic findings are evocative even when clinical signs are not. ⋯ The CT appearance is not specific, but the diagnosis can be strongly suggested in cases of fragmentation and collapse of the cricoid cartilage. We report two cases of cricoid chondronecrosis.
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Decision analysis is a technique which allows to clarify in an explicit, probabilistic and quantitative way the possible answers to a problem and to help the decision making process. The creation of algorithms, graphically displayed as decision trees in most cases, requires the introduction of quantitative information of two types: probabilities of the events that result from answering to the initial question, and utilities of the possible outcomes of these events. The choice of the optimal solution is based on the calculation of combinations of these data. ⋯ At the individual level, clinical applications of decision analysis could provide in a near future an interesting tool for the clinician involved in patient management. Even when doubts remain regarding the reliability of the data entered into the model, further sensitivity analysis provide a convenient way to test the validity of the drawn conclusions. This article hopefully offers a simplified and practical approach to basic decision analysis.