Research Article
Decline in Abdominal CT Utilization Rates for Emergency Department Diagnosis of Appendicitis after Implementation of a Focused MRI Protocol
Solomon Behar, Y. Liza Kearl, Carl Berdahl, Emily Rose, Madhu Hardasmalani, Genevieve Santillanes, Ryan Raam, Igor Kagen and Ilene Claudius
Correspondence Address :
Emily Rose
Department of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine1 USC
Keck School of Medicine
USA
Email: Emilyrose010@gmail.com
Received on: December 09, 2016;, Accepted on: December 27, 2016, Published on: January 03, 2017
Citation: Solomon Behar, Y. Liza Kearl, Carl Berdahl, et al. (2017) Decline in Abdominal CT Utilization Rates for Emergency Department Diagnosis of Appendicitis after Implementation of a Focused MRI Protocol
Copyright: 2017 Emily Rose, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Ultrasound (US) and computed tomography (CT) have been the primary imaging tools used to confirm or exclude the diagnosis of appendicitis; however, use of US can be complicated by non-diagnostic studies. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is sensitive and specific for the diagnosis of appendicitis in children.
Objective: To assess whether a decrease in ED CT utilization rates to evaluate for appendicitis would be achieved with the implementation of a MRI protocol.
Materials and Methods:
We retrospectively compared rates of ED CT utilization for pediatric patients aged 3-21 years with suspected appendicitis over an 18-month period prior to adoption of ubiquitously available dedicated appendiceal MRI protocol (7/2008-12/2009) with those from an 18-month period following adoption of the protocol (7/2012-12/2013). Frequency of abdominal CTs done for the evaluation of appendicitis in the early and late time periods were compared via Chi-squared test.
Results:
In the early period, 94/175 (53.7%) of abdominal CT were done to rule out appendicitis. In the late period, 55/147 (37.4%) of abdominal CTs were done to rule out appendicitis. X2 test showed a significant decrease between early and late abdominal CT usage to evaluate appendicitis (p= 0.005). Abdominal CTs ordered for indications other than ruling out appendicitis increased by 13.6% during the same time period.
Conclusion: Availability of an MRI protocol to diagnose appendicitis decreased use of abdominal CT scans, thereby decreasing radiation exposure in children with abdominal pain concerning for appendicitis in an ED setting.