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Role of low-dose cardiac CT scans in young children: a systematic review
T Visakh1, P S Priya2, Nitika C Panakkal1
1Department of Medical Imaging Technology, Manipal College of Health Professions, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India.
Insights
Low-dose cardiac CT scans demonstrate high diagnostic accuracy for congenital heart disease in children. Advanced protocols yield excellent image quality and safety with minimal radiation exposure.
Area of Science:
- Radiology and Imaging
- Pediatric Cardiology
- Medical Diagnostics
Background:
- Congenital heart disease (CHD) diagnosis in pediatric populations requires accurate and safe imaging modalities.
- Traditional cardiac CT scans may involve significant radiation doses, posing risks to young patients.
- Evaluating low-dose cardiac CT protocols is crucial for optimizing diagnostic yield and patient safety.
Approach:
- A systematic review was conducted on studies investigating low-dose cardiac CT for diagnosing CHD in neonates, infants, and young children.
- Searched major scientific databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, ScienceDirect) for relevant English-language literature.
- Compared image quality, diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity, specificity), and effective radiation dose across included studies.
Key Points:
- Fourteen studies involving 474 children were analyzed.
- Diagnostic accuracies ranged from 95.60% to 100.00%, with sensitivity (91.00%-96.70%) and specificity (92.30%-99.91%) consistently high.
- Effective radiation doses varied from 0.07mSv to 1.81mSv, with subjective image quality rated favorably on 4- or 5-point scales.
Conclusions:
- Advanced low-dose cardiac CT protocols, including high-pitched, dual-source, and ECG-triggered techniques, are effective for pediatric CHD diagnosis.
- These methods achieve high diagnostic accuracy and excellent image quality while significantly minimizing radiation exposure.
- Low-dose cardiac CT represents a safe and reliable imaging option for evaluating congenital heart disease in young children.
Purpose:
To perform a systematic review of the diagnostic accuracy of low-dose cardiac CT scans in young children.
Methods:
A search of MEDLINE via the PubMed, Web of Science Core Collection, Cochrane Library, and ScienceDirect databases for English-language literature was performed to identify studies on low-dose cardiac CT for the diagnosis of congenital heart disease. The image quality, diagnostic value and effective radiation dose of low-dose cardiac CT scans were compared.
Results:
Fourteen studies utilized a total sample size of 474 neonates, infants, and young children. Twelve studies reported diagnostic accuracies ranging between 95.60% and 100.00%. Among the individual studies, the sensitivity ranged between 91.00% and 96.70%, whereas the specificity ranged between 92.30% and 99.91%. The effective radiation dose between individual studies ranged between 0.07mSv and 1.81mSv. The subjective image quality was either rated on a 5-point or a 4-point scale. Among the studies that used the 5-point scale, the image quality ranged between 3.77 and 4.90, whereas among the studies that used the 4-point scale, the image quality ranged between 1.20 and 3.06.
Conclusions:
The findings of this study indicate that advanced CT scan protocols, such as high-pitched, dual-source, and ECG-triggered methods, can produce high-quality images and achieve very high diagnostic accuracy at extremely low radiation doses.
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