Futility of skull radiography for nontraumatic conditions.
Indications for post-traumatic skull radiographs have been well publicized, and "high-yield" criteria have been established. Such criteria have not been established for patients without trauma. We report a review of 157 consecutive skull series taken for nontraumatic conditions. Skull radiography was found to be extremely "low yield" in the evaluation of the nontraumatized patient--only 4.5% of the films showed significant abnormalities related to the patient's diagnosis. Moreover, regardless of radiographic results, skull films had little impact on further diagnostic workup or on patient management. Our results suggest that more stringent criteria should be considered in ordering skull radiographs for nontraumatic indications.
D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006261:Headache / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D011859:Radiography; D012640:Seizures / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D012886:Skull / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*