Comparison between Chest CT and X-ray Under 15 Years Old: Has Technological Progress Lead to Higher Radiation Exposure?

Abstract

Objectives: PA chest X-ray is the first choice for evaluation of the lung pathologies in children. The use of computedtomography (CT) has been increasing due to defensive medicine approaches and diagnostic advantages such as multiplanar imaging. The most important situation in childhood imaging is avoiding high radiation exposure, which is thedisadvantage of CT. In this study, diagnostic coherence between chest X-ray and CT and the necessity of chest CT wereevaluated.Methods: 644 patients under 15 years old who had admitted to emergency room and underwent chest CT betweenJanuary 2017 and January 2019 were enrolled in this retrospective study. 348 of 644 patients had just chest CT withoutchest X-ray. All pathologies in chest CT and chest X-ray were examined by two radiologist (F.E.U, B.O). Lung pathologieswere classified as radiologically. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, version 21 for windows) was used forthe statistical analysis. The coherence between chest X-ray and CT was evaluated with Cohen’s kappa test. P