Features Partner Sites Information LinkXpress hp
Sign In
Advertise with Us
GLOBETECH PUBLISHING LLC

Download Mobile App




Chest X-Rays Miss Most Blunt Trauma Injuries

By MedImaging International staff writers
Posted on 15 Jul 2021
Image: Chest X-ray, the mainstay of trauma screening, misses many blunt injuries (Photo courtesy of Getty Images)
Image: Chest X-ray, the mainstay of trauma screening, misses many blunt injuries (Photo courtesy of Getty Images)
A new study suggests that when used alone, chest X-ray (CXR), without other trauma screening criteria, has poor screening performance for blunt thoracic injury.

For the study, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF, USA) conducted a secondary analysis of data from the NEXUS Chest CT study (held between August 2011 and May 2014 at nine urban level-1 trauma centers in the United States), which included a total of 4,501 participants who had been injured primarily in motor vehicle accidents and who received initial chest x-rays, followed by computerized tomography (CT scans). The injuries were categorized as clinically major or minor.

The results revealed that CXR missed blunt trauma injuries in 818 patients (54.7%), of which 7.7% were classified as major injuries. The most common missed major injuries were sternal fractures, spinal fractures, and aortic injuries, while the most common missed minor injuries were pericardial effusions, sternal fractures, and mediastinal hematomas. The study was published on June 19, 2021, in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

“We do not suggest that the CXR should be completely abandoned in adult blunt trauma evaluation,” concluded study co-authors David Dillon, PhD, and Robert Rodriguez, MD. “The CXR is still useful for screening low risk trauma patients, and it is an essential component of our chest CT decision instrument, which safely guides selective chest CT utilization, with reductions of as many as 38% of chest CTs.”

CXR remains the main modality in screening and diagnosing thoracic injuries in trauma patients, used to visualize rib fractures, lung contusions, pneumothorax and hemothorax, emphysema, diaphragmatic and aortic injury, and fractures of the axial skeleton. It is common practice for a CXR taken in the emergency department to be assessed by the trauma team, and not by a trained radiologist.

Related Links:
University of California, San Francisco

New
Adjustable Mobile Barrier
M-458
Half Apron
Demi
Digital Radiographic System
OMNERA 300M
Digital X-Ray Detector Panel
Acuity G4

Channels

Nuclear Medicine

view channel
Image: Perovskite crystal boules are grown in carefully controlled conditions from the melt (Photo courtesy of Mercouri Kanatzidis/Northwestern University)

New Camera Sees Inside Human Body for Enhanced Scanning and Diagnosis

Nuclear medicine scans like single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) allow doctors to observe heart function, track blood flow, and detect hidden diseases. However, current detectors are either... Read more

General/Advanced Imaging

view channel
Image: The Angio-CT solution integrates the latest advances in interventional imaging (Photo courtesy of Canon Medical)

Cutting-Edge Angio-CT Solution Offers New Therapeutic Possibilities

Maintaining accuracy and safety in interventional radiology is a constant challenge, especially as complex procedures require both high precision and efficiency. Traditional setups often involve multiple... Read more

Imaging IT

view channel
Image: The new Medical Imaging Suite makes healthcare imaging data more accessible, interoperable and useful (Photo courtesy of Google Cloud)

New Google Cloud Medical Imaging Suite Makes Imaging Healthcare Data More Accessible

Medical imaging is a critical tool used to diagnose patients, and there are billions of medical images scanned globally each year. Imaging data accounts for about 90% of all healthcare data1 and, until... Read more
Copyright © 2000-2025 Globetech Media. All rights reserved.