Purpose or Case Report: Low dose C-arm Computed Tomography (CT), is a technology that uses flat panel detectors to acquire real-time 3D images during an interventional radiology (IR) procedure to assist with anatomic localization and procedural mapping. This study describes our low dose protocol and applications of its use at a pediatric institution.
Methods & Materials: A retrospective study performed between October 2007 and August 2015 of procedures utilizing our low dose protocol (5sDR/8sDR, 248/396 projection images/acquisition and 0.1 - 0.17µGy/projection dose at the detector with 0.3/0.6/0.9 mm Cu filtration.) Cases were categorized by procedure type and then average patient age and C-arm CT and total dose area product (DAP) were calculated.
Results: 237 cases utilized C-arm CT with our low dose protocol. Results by each procedure type are listed in Table 1. The most common procedures were temporomandibular (TMJ) and sacroiliac (SI) joint injection (55%) and sclerotherapy (33%). C-arm CT was used in cases of difficult percutaneous access in less common applications such as cecostomy and gastrostomy placement, lumbar puncture and thoracentesis. C-arm CT accounted for between 11% and 88% of the total procedural DAP.
Conclusions: Low dose C-arm CT has multiple applications within pediatric IR and may be considered as an adjunctive imaging technique in a variety of procedures, particularly when percutaneous access is challenging.