[The value of thoracic and abdominal computed tomography with intensive care patients]

We evaluated in a retrospective study the therapeutic relevance of thoracic and abdominal CT examinations on 157 intensive-care patients with previously inconclusive radiological examinations. Indications for CT were sepsis (n = 105), rarely a decrease in haematocrit (n = 30), multiorgan failure (n = 16) or suspected aortic aneurysm (n = 6). In 83.4% of examinations CT detected clinically relevant features, in 44.3% positive CT studies resulted in invasive therapy within 72 hours and therefore changed patient management decisively. Our results justify the use of CT, enabling if necessary an on-target intervention, the advantages outweighing the inherent risks if the patient is exposed to the relatively small risk of being temporarily removed from the intensive-care unit for immediate invasive treatment.