Pulmonary emboli are a significant cause of death in pregnant females if undiagnosed and untreated. To diagnose a pulmonary embolism during pregnancy a CT Pulmonary Angiogram (CTPA) is frequently performed. This requires intravenous administration of iodinated contrast. Currently the guidelines issued by the Members of the Contrast Media Safety Committee of European Society of Urogenital Radiology recommend that thyroid function should be checked in neonates in the first week of life if exposed to iodinated contrast in utero as there is a potential risk of...

This retrospective study was conducted at Galway University Hospital (GUH), Galway in Ireland. This is a tertiary referral centre with a maternity unit. The Galway University Institutional ethical review board approved this study and waivered the requirement for written consent. All CTPA scans were acquired on a 64-slice Multidetector CT (MDCT) scanner (Somatom Sensation 64, Siemens Healthcare) with a collimation of 0.6 mm and a gantry rotation of 500 milliseconds. Between 80-120 ml of low-osmolar, non-ionic iodinated contrast medium Iohexol 350 (Omnipaque, GE Healthcare) was...

Infant and maternal baseline data A total of 78 CTPA studies were included. There were three twin pregnancies giving a total of 81 infants in the exposed group. The control group consisted of 106 unexposed infants. Gestational age at time of birth ranged from 31-41 weeks in the exposed infants. Most were born at term. 72 (88.9%) infants were born after 37 weeks and 9 (11.1%) infants born before 37 weeks. The mean birth weight was 3401.5 grams ± 673 (95% CI 3252.6, 3550.4). 8...

here was no statistically significant difference between the TSH vaules for exposed and unexposed infants.The effects of iodine may be short lived and at the time of measuring the TSH during neonatal screening it may no longer be clinically apparent. A transient in utero hyperthyroidism may occur following administration and although it does not appear to lead to hypothyroidism in a neonate it could possibly affect the developing foetus in utero. This is a screening test and has its own limitations. There is variability in...

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