X-ray imaging of multiple adjacent regions in paediatric patients: Potential utility for diagnosis and patient management.

Background: In emergency presentations, it is not uncommon for patients to present with imaging requests of multiple body regions to detect concurrent injury. While current literature explores diagnostic efficacy of adjacent imaging for forearm fractures, there is limited research on its effectiveness across all extremities. This paper explores the diagnostic yield of X-ray adjacent imaging of the upper and lower limb in paediatric patients.

Methods: A retrospective audit was performed using information available on radiology request forms from paediatric patients (age <18 years) that had multiple X-rays of adjacent body regions over six months at two hospitals. The main or first X-ray was referred to as initial imaging, while all subsequent X-rays of adjacent regions was considered secondary imaging. Clinical history and radiologists' findings were collected, categorised, and analysed using Chi square.

Results: There were 661 X-rays performed across 277 patients. Initial imaging was significantly more likely to detect injuries or abnormalities (35 %) than X-rays of adjacent regions (1.6 %), with 94 % of all abnormalities detected on initial imaging overall (χ2(3) = 241.247, p < 0.001). X-ray request forms with no clinical symptoms were significantly more likely to have no findings detected (χ2(3) = 53.493, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: X-ray imaging of a body region adjacent to an injury has low diagnostic yield, suggesting the need for interventions to reduce unnecessary adjacent X-ray imaging. Clinical history information was often limited and concurrent injuries were low.