BMC emergency medicine
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BMC emergency medicine · Oct 2018
Multicenter StudyPrior CT imaging history for patients who undergo whole-body CT for acute traumatic injury and are discharged home from the emergency department.
Recurrent CT imaging is believed to significantly increase lifetime malignancy risk. We previously reported that high acuity, admitted trauma patients who received a whole-body CT in the emergency department (ED) had a history of prior CT imaging in 14% of cases. The primary objective of this study was to determine the CT imaging history for trauma patients who received a whole-body CT but were ultimately deemed safe for discharge directly home from the ED. ⋯ We found a positive history for prior CT for 25% of trauma patients who received whole-body CT scan but were discharged from the ED to home.