How harmful is it to do CT scan on babies?

Many people know that CT scans are bad for the body, but they have to do them for some reasons. In fact, it is okay to do a CT scan occasionally, as long as you don't do it often. Because CT scans have high radiation, pregnant women cannot do them. Doing CT scans during pregnancy may cause fetal malformations. Even if you are a normal person, try not to do CT scans when you are fine, because it does emit radiation.

CT equipment mainly consists of the following three parts:

1. The scanning part consists of an X-ray tube, a detector and a scanning frame;

2. The computer system stores and calculates the information data collected by scanning;

3. Image display and storage system, which displays the computer-processed and reconstructed images on a TV screen or captures the images with multiple cameras or laser cameras. The number of detectors has grown from the original 1 to as many as 4,800. The scanning methods have also evolved from translation/rotation, rotation/rotation, rotation/fixed to the newly developed spiral CT scan. Computers have large capacity and fast computing speed, and can reconstruct images immediately. Due to the short scanning time, motion artifacts can be avoided, such as interference from respiratory movement, which can improve image quality. The layers are continuous, so lesions will not be missed, and three-dimensional reconstruction is feasible. Injection of contrast agent for angiography can obtain CT angiography (CTA).

The scanning method used by ultra-high-speed CT scanning is completely different from the former. The scanning time can be shortened to less than 40ms, and multiple frames of images can be obtained per second. Since the scanning time is very short, movie images can be acquired and artifacts caused by motion can be avoided. Therefore, it is suitable for cardiovascular angiography and examinations of children and patients with acute trauma who cannot cooperate well.

CT examination has high diagnostic value for central nervous system diseases and is widely used. It has good diagnostic effect and is relatively reliable for diseases such as intracranial tumors, abscesses and granulomas, parasitic diseases, traumatic hematomas and brain injuries, cerebral infarction and cerebral hemorrhage, intraspinal tumors and intervertebral disc herniation. Therefore, except for cerebral angiography which is still used to diagnose intracranial aneurysms, vascular dysplasia and cerebral vascular occlusion, as well as to understand the blood supply arteries of brain tumors, other brain X-rays such as pneumoencephalography and ventriculography are rarely used. Spiral CT scanning can obtain relatively detailed and clear vascular reconstruction images, namely CTA, and can achieve three-dimensional real-time display, which has the potential to replace conventional cerebral angiography.

CT is also valuable in diagnosing head and neck diseases. For example, it can detect orbital space-occupying lesions, early sinus cancer, small cholecystoma of the middle ear, destruction and dislocation of the auditory ossicles, minor destruction of the bony labyrinth of the inner ear, congenital malformations of the ear, and early detection of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. However, if the lesion is obvious and can be diagnosed by plain X-ray, CT examination is not necessary.

In the diagnosis of chest diseases, CT examination is increasingly showing its superiority with the application of high-resolution CT. Contrast-enhanced scanning is usually used to determine whether there are masses or enlarged lymph nodes in the mediastinum and hilum, and whether the bronchi are narrowed or blocked. It is very helpful in diagnosing primary and metastatic mediastinal tumors, lymph node tuberculosis, central lung cancer, etc. Interstitial and solid lesions in the lungs can also be displayed better. CT is more advantageous in showing areas that are difficult to display on plain film examinations, such as concentric and overlapping lesions of large vessels. Lesions of the pleura, diaphragm, and chest wall can also be clearly displayed.

CT examination of abdominal and pelvic diseases is increasingly widely used, and is mainly used for the diagnosis of diseases of the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, spleen, peritoneal cavity and retroperitoneal space, as well as urinary and reproductive systems. Especially space-occupying lesions, inflammatory and traumatic lesions. CT examination is also of great value in detecting extraluminal invasion of gastrointestinal lesions and metastasis to adjacent and distant sites. Of course, the condition of gastrointestinal lesions still mainly depends on barium angiography, endoscopic examination and pathological biopsy.

In most cases, bone and joint diseases can be diagnosed through simple and economical conventional X-ray examinations, so CT examinations are relatively rarely used.

shortcoming

The radiation dose is greater than that of ordinary X-ray machines, so pregnant women cannot undergo CT examinations.