Texas spine injuries: do CT scans do a better job than X-rays?

If you hurt your back in an accident, you may already know that in order to properly diagnose your spine injury, your doctor needs to perform a variety of tests.  Some damage – like a spinal fracture or disk herniation – can be difficult to spot and may require a variety of examinations and tests.

 

One concern that goes along with diagnostic testing – if you have to be x-rayed or have a CT scan, you may be concerned about the amount of radiation you receive.  You may also wonder which type of test is the best to diagnose your spine injury.

 

A recent study revealed that CT scans (computed tomography scans) of an accident victim’s chest, abdomen and pelvis can be used to detect spinal fractures in the thoracic and lumbar spine.  A technique called CT spine reformatting is what gets the images doctors need, and it eliminates the need for x-rays of the thoracic and lumbar spine areas.

 

The benefits?  Patients who get CT spine reformatting instead of x-rays are exposed to less radiation – and the process can save money.  The results are also better because CT scans are much more sensitive and specific than x-rays, and their use can eliminate the need for multiple x-rays.  In some cases, fractures seen on the CT scan aren’t even visible on the x-ray, which means that time, money and radiation exposure was wasted on the x-rays.

 

The study’s authors put their findings into perspective with hard numbers: for every 1,000 trauma patients, the additional cost for needless x-rays is $19,678.93 and the extra unnecessary radiation 170 mSv.