Keywords:
Contrast agents, Professional issues, CT, MR, Safety, Audit and standards, Quality assurance
Authors:
V. Tang, P. Eastgate, M. Prior, J. Clouston; QLD/AU
DOI:
10.1594/ranzcr2017/R-0063
Results
During the audit period,
a total of 29491 and 10860 contrast-enhanced Computer Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans were performed,
respectively.
CME occurred in 81 CT and 9 MRI patients,
providing an incidence rate of 0.27% during CT,
and 0.08% during MRI.
Overall extravasation rate was 0.22%.
59% of the population was female,
and mean age was 60.3 years (range 20 to 94 years).
Patients were monitored for an average of 9.3 days post-CME (range 0 to 64 days).
48 (53.3%) incidents occurred as inpatients,
19 (21.1%) as emergency patients,
and 23 (25.6%) as outpatients (Fig. 1).
Table 1 summarises the findings for cannula size,
injection site and reason why extravasation was initially noticed.
28 (31.1%) experienced pain secondary to the CME,
44 (48.9%) and 1 (1.1%) experienced swelling and bruising respectively.
40 (44.4%) patients reported no complications.
No patients suffered major harm or required an extended hospital encounter due to the CME (Fig. 2).
No incidents of pain required escalation beyond oral analgesia,
and all cases of swelling and bruising were treated successfully with conservative management.
One incident was identified as potentially avoidable (1.1%): the injection rate being set too high for the cannula size.