Clinical prediction scale approach derived from a retrospective study to reduce the number of urgent, low-value cranial CT scans.

Purpose: Fifty percent of cranial CT scans performed achieve no benefit and entail risks. Our aim is to determine the yield of non-traumatic urgent cranial-CT and develop a pretest clinical probability scale approach.

Methods: Adult patients seen in our emergency department between 2017-2021 and referred for urgent cranial-CT for non-traumatic reasons were retrospectively recruited and randomly selected.

Inappropriate requests for cranial CT scans in emergency departments increase overuse and reduce test performance.

Purpose: The number of non-traumatic urgent cranial computed tomography (NT-UCCT) is exponentially increasing but limited research has been conducted on the quality of clinical justification. Accordingly, we aimed (1) to assess how clinical information in the electronic NT-UCCT request agreed with that provided in the patient's emergency department discharge summary and (2) to analyze the potential effect of those discrepancies on the NT-UCCT overload.

Material And Methods: Patients undergoing NT-UCCT in 2017-2021 were randomly selected for this retrospective research-board-approved study.