Objective: Childhood head trauma is a common patient group in emergency departments and computed tomography (CT) is a frequently preferred imaging method in these cases. We aimed to retrospectively evaluate the cranial tomography results of pediatric patients, along with their admission clinics, hospitalization, and survival status.
Methods: 400 pediatric patients admitted to the emergency department with head trauma between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2020 were included in this retrospective cross-sectional study. Demographic characteristics, trauma patterns, symptoms, clinical findings, CT findings, hospitalization, consultation, and survival status of the patients were recorded and evaluated.
Results: The mean age of evaluated patients was 6.87±4.96 (range 0-17). Among the 400 cases in the study, the most common type of trauma was falling in 260(65%) cases, the most common symptom was headache in 99(24.8%) cases, and 264(66%) patients had CT imaging. Although 137(34.3%) of all patients had no complaints, they had CT imaging. Although 56(14%) of all patients did not have any complaints, there was a lesion in their tomography. While 288 patients had no CT lesions, the most common CT findings were 80(20%) cephalohematomas and 21(5.3%) fractures, respectively. The relationship of clinical symptoms with both the presence of radiological imaging and the presence of a lesion on CT was significant (p=0.001). Four (1%) patients were in the exitus group.
Conclusion: Tomography imaging is a very important examination in pediatric patients with head trauma and is directly related to symptoms, clinic, and mortality. There is a requirement for multicenter prospective studies on this subject to establish realistic and reliable algorithms for cranial CT preference in patients.
Key words: Emergency Department, Head trauma, Tomography, Child
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