PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

'Incidental findings' rare but significant events in pediatric CT scans

4 percent of head-trauma scans have unexpected results that may need follow up

2013-09-12
(Press-News.org) (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — The largest study of computed tomographic (CT) scans taken in emergency departments across the country for children with head injuries describes the prevalence of "incidental findings" — results that were not expected from the injury — and categorizes them by urgency.

The article, titled "Incidental findings in children with blunt head trauma evaluated with cranial CT scans," was published in the August issue of Pediatrics, and provides a context for doctors in emergency departments who encounter these situations.

"Incidental findings are a rare but significant event," said Nathan Kuppermann, professor and chair of emergency medicine at the UC Davis Medical Center and principal investigator of the study. "It is important for doctors to look for abnormalities other than what they expect to find and to be prepared to interpret and communicate these findings to families."

The study involved nearly 44,000 children seen for a head injury in 25 hospital emergency departments nationwide. Nearly 16,000 had CT scans to evaluate an injury, and about 4 percent of the scans revealed incidental findings ranging from enlarged tonsils to life-threatening cancers. Children with a known pre-existing brain abnormality were excluded from the analysis.

The researchers also stratified the incidental findings into three categories: those that needed immediate evaluation or treatment, those that needed appropriate timely outpatient follow up, and those that merited further investigation only if the problems were causing symptoms. Only 0.1 percent of the overall sample of CTs fell into the most serious category.

Due to the small percentage of patients with the most urgent incidental findings, the study authors do not recommend any changes to current CT scan guidelines. They believe emergency medicine physicians should continue to perform CT scans in children as is medically justified for their injury because a CT scan entails a small but known long-term risk of cancer from radiation exposure.

Genetic analysis, sophisticated imaging studies and other high-technology tests have made it possible to gain information that neither the doctor nor patient expects. Knowing what to do with these findings, especially if they are likely to be inconsequential to a patient's health, can be a dilemma for physicians. The authors believe physicians should weigh the patient's right to know against financial costs and potential negative health effects from anxiety, additional testing and possibly even unnecessary treatment brought on by learning of the findings.

"Because the practice of medicine has embraced technologies that provide information beyond the actual clinical question, a need to develop strategies to handle unexpected information now exists," said Alexander Rogers, assistant professor of pediatric emergency medicine at the University of Michigan Health System and lead author of the study. "Particularly in the emergency room, doctors must decide quickly whether and how to disclose information to a family with whom they have no prior relationship and do not know what their response is likely to be."

The study is by far the largest pediatric multicenter description of the prevalence of incidental findings on head CT scans. It also is a secondary analysis of a study that was designed to establish a decision rule for determining which children who present to the emergency room with a head injury should have a CT scan to evaluate it. The resulting Pediatric Head Injury/Trauma Algorithm has become standard in emergency departments worldwide and has helped reduce the number of unnecessary CT scans in children. Both studies were part of the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN), the only federally-funded pediatric emergency medicine research network. With participating academic and urban hospitals across the country, the network has access to a large number of demographically diverse populations of children being seen in emergency departments.

"The large size of this study enhances the value and generalizability of our findings," said Kuppermann, who is the founding chair of PECARN and served as its chair until 2008. "Without the large, multicenter network provided by PECARN, we would be unable to have undertaken such a definitive study."

### Other study authors are James Holmes of the UC Davis School of Medicine; Cormac Maher of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Jeff Schunk and Michelle Miskin of the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City; Kimberly Quayle of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo.; Elizabeth Jacobs of Brown University in Providence, R.I.; Richard Lichenstein of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore; Elizabeth Powell of Northwestern University in Chicago, Ill.; and Peter Dayan of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, N.Y.

The study was supported by a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration/Maternal and Child Health Bureau (HRSA/MCHB) Division of Research, Education, and Training and the Emergency Medical Services for Children Program. PECARN is supported by the HRSA/MCHB Emergency Medical Services for Children Program.

UC Davis Health System is improving lives and transforming health care by providing excellent patient care, conducting groundbreaking research, fostering innovative, interprofessional education, and creating dynamic, productive partnerships with the community. The academic health system includes one of the country's best medical schools, a 619-bed acute-care teaching hospital, a 1,000-member physician's practice group and the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. It is home to a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, an international neurodevelopmental institute, a stem cell institute and a comprehensive children's hospital. Other nationally prominent centers focus on advancing telemedicine, improving vascular care, eliminating health disparities and translating research findings into new treatments for patients. Together, they make UC Davis a hub of innovation that is transforming health for all. For more information, visit http://healthsystem.ucdavis.edu.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Brain atrophy linked with cognitive decline in diabetes

2013-09-12
New research has shown that cognitive decline in people with Type 2 Diabetes is likely due to brain atrophy, or shrinkage, that resembles patterns seen in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Dr Chris Moran and Associate Professor Velandai Srikanth of Monash University led the first large-scale study to compare brain scans and cognitive function between people with and without Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). They found that brain atrophy, rather than cerebrovascular lesions, was likely the primary reason for cognitive impairment associated with T2DM. The World ...

Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy for oil and gas detection

2013-09-12
A greater understanding of the evolutionary stage of kerogen for hydrocarbon generation would play a role in easing the world's current energy problem. Professor ZHAO Kun and his group from the Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Terahertz Spectrum and Photoelectric Detection (CPCIF, China University of Petroleum, Beijing) set out to tackle this problem. After five years of innovative research, they have developed terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) as an effective method to detect the generation of oil and gas from kerogen. Their work, entitled "Applying terahertz time-domain ...

Cilantro, that favorite salsa ingredient, purifies drinking water

2013-09-12
Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society Cilantro, that favorite salsa ingredient, purifies drinking water INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 12, 2013 — Hints that a favorite ingredient in Mexican, Southeast Asian and other spicy cuisine may be an inexpensive new way of purifying drinking water are on the menu today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American ...

Alzheimer's patients show striking individual differences in molecular basis of disease

2013-09-12
Alzheimer's disease is thought to be caused by the buildup of abnormal, thread-like protein deposits in the brain, but little is known about the molecular structures of these so-called beta-amyloid fibrils. A study published by Cell Press September 12th in the journal Cell has revealed that distinct molecular structures of beta-amyloid fibrils may predominate in the brains of Alzheimer's patients with different clinical histories and degrees of brain damage. The findings pave the way for new patient-specific strategies to improve diagnosis and treatment of this common and ...

Darwin's dilemma resolved: Evolution's 'big bang' explained by 5x faster rates

2013-09-12
The incredible burst of innovation in animals' body plans and habits during the Cambrian explosion, between 540 and 520 million years ago, can be explained by a reasonable uptick in evolutionary rates. The discovery, based on the first rigorous estimates of early evolutionary rates in arthropods, shows that evolution's "big bang" is compatible with natural selection as Darwin envisioned it, say researchers reporting their findings in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on September 12. "This simultaneous burst of life, with few or no precursors, had seemed at ...

Study sheds light on genetics of how and why fish swim in schools

2013-09-12
SEATTLE – How and why fish swim in schools has long fascinated biologists looking for clues to understand the complexities of social behavior. A new study by a team of researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center may help provide some insight. To be published online in the Sept. 12 issue of Current Biology, the study found that two key components of schooling – the tendency to school and how well fish do it – map to different genomic regions in the threespine stickleback, a small fish native to the Northern Hemisphere. That's important, said lead author Anna ...

Autism gene stunts neurons, but growth can be restored, in mice

2013-09-12
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Brown University researchers have traced a genetic deficiency implicated in autism in humans to specific molecular and cellular consequences that cause clear deficits in mice in how well neurons can grow the intricate branches that allow them to connect to brain circuits. The researchers also show in their study (online Sep. 12, 2013, in Neuron) that they could restore proper neuronal growth by compensating for the errant molecular mechanisms they identified. The study involves the gene that produces a protein called NHE6. Mutation ...

New info on an elusive green cicada

2013-09-12
For nearly 80 years, the North American cicada Okanagana viridis has received little attention in scientific literature, but a new article in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America provides the first notes on the song and ecology of this elusive species, and updates its known range. O. viridis is unusual in a large genus of 60 otherwise arid- or cold-adapted, mostly western U.S. species, in that it is found in the temperate deciduous southern forests of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas. It is almost solid bright green, and it calls from ...

La Jolla Institute scientist identifies helper cells that trigger potent responses to HIV

2013-09-12
SAN DIEGO – (September 12, 2013) A major new finding that will significantly advance efforts to create the world's first antibody-based AIDS vaccine was published today by researchers from the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology. La Jolla Institute scientist Shane Crotty, Ph.D., a respected vaccine researcher and member of one of the nation's top AIDS vaccine consortiums, showed that certain helper T cells are important for triggering a strong antibody response against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Helper T cells are disease-fighting immune cells key in ...

A microbe's trick for staying young

2013-09-12
Researchers have discovered a microbe that stays forever young by rejuvenating every time it reproduces. The findings, published in Current Biology, provide fundamental insights into the mechanisms of aging. While aging remains an inevitable fact of life, an international team involving researchers from the University of Bristol and the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany has found that this is not the case for a common species of yeast microbe which has evolved to stay young. The team has shown that, unlike other species, the ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Reality check: making indoor smartphone-based augmented reality work

Overthinking what you said? It’s your ‘lizard brain’ talking to newer, advanced parts of your brain

Black men — including transit workers — are targets for aggression on public transportation, study shows

Troubling spike in severe pregnancy-related complications for all ages in Illinois

Alcohol use identified by UTHealth Houston researchers as most common predictor of escalated cannabis vaping among youths in Texas

Need a landing pad for helicopter parenting? Frame tasks as learning

New MUSC Hollings Cancer Center research shows how Golgi stress affects T-cells' tumor-fighting ability

#16to365: New resources for year-round activism to end gender-based violence and strengthen bodily autonomy for all

Earliest fish-trapping facility in Central America discovered in Maya lowlands

São Paulo to host School on Disordered Systems

New insights into sleep uncover key mechanisms related to cognitive function

USC announces strategic collaboration with Autobahn Labs to accelerate drug discovery

Detroit health professionals urge the community to act and address the dangers of antimicrobial resistance

3D-printing advance mitigates three defects simultaneously for failure-free metal parts 

Ancient hot water on Mars points to habitable past: Curtin study

In Patagonia, more snow could protect glaciers from melt — but only if we curb greenhouse gas emissions soon

Simplicity is key to understanding and achieving goals

Caste differentiation in ants

Nutrition that aligns with guidelines during pregnancy may be associated with better infant growth outcomes, NIH study finds

New technology points to unexpected uses for snoRNA

Racial and ethnic variation in survival in early-onset colorectal cancer

Disparities by race and urbanicity in online health care facility reviews

Exploring factors affecting workers' acquisition of exercise habits using machine learning approaches

Nano-patterned copper oxide sensor for ultra-low hydrogen detection

Maintaining bridge safer; Digital sensing-based monitoring system

A novel approach for the composition design of high-entropy fluorite oxides with low thermal conductivity

A groundbreaking new approach to treating chronic abdominal pain

ECOG-ACRIN appoints seven researchers to scientific committee leadership positions

New model of neuronal circuit provides insight on eye movement

Cooking up a breakthrough: Penn engineers refine lipid nanoparticles for better mRNA therapies

[Press-News.org] 'Incidental findings' rare but significant events in pediatric CT scans
4 percent of head-trauma scans have unexpected results that may need follow up