Achieving acceptable vascular and parenchymal enhancement in paediatric Computed Tomography (CT) body imaging can be difficult. One method of achieving this is to image both during arterial and portal venous phase. However, there is a radiation dose cost associated with this. Taking into consideration the radiosensitive nature of paediatric patients, this may not be acceptable. Another method is the split bolus technique (SBT), as proposed by the Royal College of Radiologists[1].This involves ‘splitting’ the bolus of contrast and trying to achieve acceptable enhancement both in...

This work was undertaken at a paediatric site which has one CT scanner and one injector pump. This scanner and injector pump were used for all studies. Weight based scanning protocols were used for all patients. The SBT is aweight-basedprotocol. The RCR recommend injecting 2/3 of the contrast volume at a slow rate, followed by the final third injected at twice the infusion rate of the first bolus [1]. The scan is then triggered at 70 seconds. This protocol was introduced for body imaging. As...

Objective Analysis 13 cases were reviewed. The average HU values measured by the radiologists were calculated and are demonstrated inFigure 2. Very little variance between the average measurements is demonstrated. A published study by Cademartiriet al found an attenuation value of 185HU or more was sufficient for aortic angiographic studies [2]. In this audit, 2 studies fell slightly below this (179HU & 169HU). Both of these studies were patients in the 30kg category,which may suggest the protocol for this weight category may need adjustment. However...

The audit results have demonstrated clear positive results for 10 of the 13 studies reviewed in this audit. Out of the 3 that did not demonstrate clear positive results, only one of them was considered poor and this was most likely due to the patient’s haemodynamic condition. SBT has an important role in paediatric body imaging as it produces further anatomical and physiological information, at the radiation cost of just one CT scan. However further work may be required to enhance the results the SBT...

N. Kirk; Dublin/IE - nothing to disclose E. L. Twomey; Dublin/IE - nothing to disclose L. Bowden; Dublin/IE - nothing to disclose C. Saidlear; Dublin/IE - nothing to disclose

[1] Royal College of Radiologists 2014. Paediatric Trauma Protocols. London. [2] Cademartiri, F., Mollet, N.R., van der Lugt, A., McFadden, E.P., Stijnen, T., de Feyter, P.J. and Krestin, G.P., 2005. Intravenous contrast material administration at helical 16–detector row CT coronary angiography: effect of iodine concentration on vascular attenuation.Radiology,236(2), pp.661-665. [3] Leung, V.J., Grima, M., Khan, N. and Jones, H.R., 2017. Early experience with a split-bolus single-pass CT protocol in paediatric trauma.Clinical radiology,72(6), pp.497-501.