Improved identification of sternal injuries with multidetector computed tomography (MDCT): sagittal reconstructions

Chest computed tomography is acquired in the axial plane, but sternal injuries may be missed on axial images. This study hypothesized that sagittal sternal reconstruction images improve detection of sternal injury and radiologist's confidence in diagnosis compared to axial images. Five radiologists independently reviewed first axial images and on a different day sagittal images of a retrospective set of trauma cases recording presence/absence of a sternal injury and/or adjacent hematoma. The reviewer's confidence in the presence/absence of a sternal injury was assessed on a 5-point scale. Sagittal reconstructions generally yielded higher interreader agreement and confidence indices on statistical analysis.