General Hints - Siemens SOMATOM Manual

Children

General Hints

• Topograms: 256 mm lateral topograms are defined
for the head modes, and 512 mm AP topograms are
defined for the body modes. Please keep in mind
that the children's size can be dramatically different.
You should press the "Hold Measurement" button
whenever the range shown on the real-time growing
topogram is long enough, in order to avoid unneces-
sary radiation.
In a consistent effort to reduce the total dose of an
examination, all topograms of the pediatric proto-
cols are defined at 80 kV with minimum current
(50mA).
• Gantry tilt is available for sequence scanning, not for
spiral scanning.
• For all head studies, it is very important for image
quality purposes to position the patient in the center
of the scan field. Use the lateral laser beam to make
sure that the patient is positioned in the center.
• Warm surroundings and dimmed lighting are helpful
to make children more cooperative.
• Sedation: Although the advent of the Multislice CT
scanner has enabled the user to scan through an
area of interest much faster than ever sometimes
patient motion can still result in severe motion arti-
facts which are seen on the resultant images. This
becomes a factor especially with infants and
younger children who are unable to hold still for the
exam. Your institution may consider sedating such
patients. Of course, appropriate protocols need to be
set up at your institution. For instance, the drug of
choice for specific ages/weights of these patients
(taking into consideration the total time of the
exam), the form of administration, patient preps,
adequate monitoring of the patient (pre-scan, dur-
ing the exam and post-scan) etc. should all be taken
into consideration.
The proper personnel and equipment must also be
readily available in the event of a problem.
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