Radiological emergency room management with emphasis on multidetector-row CT

Trauma is the fifth leading cause of death after disease of the cardiovascular system, malignomas and disease of the respiratory and digestive system. The management of severely injured patients, including radiological imaging, is a matter of ongoing development. In particular, as for the imaging modalities, multidetector-row CT represents a substantial refinement in the diagnostic work-up of multitrauma patients. Sufficient therapy within the first hour after trauma increases the patient's chances for survival significantly. Thus, therapeutic procedures and diagnostic evaluation have to be concomitant events, performed by a multi-disciplinary team, namely trauma surgeon, anesthesiologist and, last but not least, radiologist. The increased performance of multidetector-row CT leads to increased spatial resolution, which is a prerequisite for sophisticated two- and three-dimensional postprocessing. The increased volume coverage speed allows for comprehensive whole-body CT at still high levels of spatial resolution, resulting in significant spare of time which influences patient's survival. Using this technique conventional imaging such as plane film or angiography may be omitted. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.