Purpose or Case Report: To describe imaging requisition patterns for prospective pediatric research studies at a large academic children’s hospital as insight into the role of radiology services in the current research environment.
Methods & Materials: Cross-sectional evaluation of prospective studies submitted for radiology research ancillary review between March 2020 and June 2022 in a large tertiary stand-alone academic children’s hospital. Data were collected with a digital questionnaire completed by principal investigators and study coordinators. This was done at the time of submission of prospective research studies requiring radiology services. Descriptive statistics of collected data (mean, median and interquartile range [IQR]) are presented.
Results: A total of 100 studies were available for analysis. The median monthly submissions were 3 (IQR: 2-5), sample size for each study was 20 (IQR: 8-54), and median number of visits to the radiology department required per participant was 3 (IQR: 1-6). Only 2% of studies included fetuses; infants and young children were included in 49%; school-age children in 74%; adolescents in 78%; and young adults were included in 63% of studies. The most common clinical service lines requesting research services were oncology (19%) and neurology (15%). Sedation/anesthesia services were requested for imaging in 37% of studies, most commonly for MR.
Study submissions included more than one modality in 31%. Most studies requesting radiography involved musculoskeletal imaging (89%), studies requesting CT involved cardiothoracic (63%) and abdominopelvic (52%) imaging, and studies requesting MR most commonly involved abdominopelvic (36%) and central nervous system (33%) imaging. The abdominopelvic region was the most requested for both ultrasound (36%) and PET/CT (80%).
Radiologists were part of the team in only 24% of studies. 16% studies requested a specific research report tailored to their data collection and research templates.
Conclusions: In conclusion, we present insight into the imaging needs of prospective pediatric studies in a large stand-alone academic children’s hospital, which can guide equipment and staffing decision-making for departments and hospitals looking to further their support for clinical research.