Impact of Computed Tomography Scanning on ICU Patient Management: Retrospective Study

Patients admitted to the intensive care unit often require CT imaging. Performing this diagnostic test on a critically ill patient involves risks, such as those associated with transferring a ventilated and unstable patient and those associated with the injection of intravenous contrast material. Also, multiple CT examinations may create a burden on the X-ray institute and the medical staff, result in the postponement of CT examinations for other patients, as well as increase hospitalization costs.

In this work, we would like to check the rate of complications involved in performing a CT scan in patients hospitalized in the general intensive care unit of our institution, while analyzing the differences between the times the test is performed (morning, night shift), as well as examine in what percentage of the CT scans the test performed contributed to a significant progress in the diagnosis or a significant change in the treatment plan of the patient, while referring to subgroups (sepsis, trauma, respiratory failure, with an emphasis on covid patients, patients with scoliosis, patients with intracranial pathology).