ArticleLa Radiologia medica2020
Head CT scan in emergency room: Is it still abused? Quantification and causes analysis of overprescription in an Italian Emergency Department.
Article in La Radiologia medica, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- How defensive medicine is defined in European medical literature: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2022Pooled it
- Evaluating head CT referral quality and appropriateness in an Italian emergency department: a monocentric retrospective study.Insights into imaging · 2025Article
- Unnecessary Medical Imaging and Determinant Factors in a District Hospital of Iran: A Cross-Sectional Study.Health science reports · 2024Article
- Chief complaints and computed tomography results in the emergency department: a three-year retrospective cohort study.BMC emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Complications Risk Assessment and Imaging Findings of Thermal Ablation Treatment in Liver Cancers: What the Radiologist Should Expect.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Review
- Complications after Thermal Ablation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Liver Metastases: Imaging Findings.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Characterizing and quantifying low-value diagnostic imaging internationally: a scoping review.BMC medical imaging · 2022Article
- Current Standards for and Clinical Impact of Emergency Radiology in Major Trauma.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Review
- Application of a deep learning image reconstruction (DLIR) algorithm in head CT imaging for children to improve image quality and lesion detection.BMC medical imaging · 2021Article
- Imaging Appropriateness in Pediatric Radiology during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Retrospective Comparison with No COVID-19 Period.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Incident Reporting System in an Italian University Hospital: A New Tool for Improving Patient Safety.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In recent years, the increasing prescription of diagnostic imaging has been noted, due to advances in imaging technology and the development of defensive medicine. Overuse of diagnostic imaging significantly impacts the quality and costs of health care. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to quantify overprescription and investigate its causes through the evaluation of head computer tomography (CT) scan prescriptions. In this study, a set of 100 requests of CT scans was collected and analysed by three experts in guidelines and scientific evidences, evaluating prescription appropriateness. Then, the rate of overprescription was quantified and its causes identified as incorrect adoption of guidelines indications (32%) and as defensive medicine (6%). Therefore, in order to reduce inappropriate investigations, the findings of the present study suggest that the reduction in overprescription could be reached through the improvement of training of health personnel and the propagation of a no-blame culture aimed at minimizing defensive medicine.
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