(Sunday, 7/29/2018) 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Room: Exhibit Hall
Purpose: To determine if using an in-room CT-on-rails for verification scans of pediatric patients to assess treatment delivery and response will significantly reduce time under anesthesia relative to transferring patients to a CT simulator located in an adjacent room for scanning.
Methods: Between July 2016 and January 2018, 20 consecutive patients requiring general anesthesia underwent verification CT imaging either immediately before or after daily treatment. Median age was 6 years (range 21 months to 13 years). Ten patients were scanned using a CT simulator, and ten were scanned using a CT-on-rails. The time between treatment and the CT verification (|Tx-CT|), including any time moving and setting up the patient in a second room, was compared for both groups. For cases where the CT verification preceded treatment, |Tx-CT| was the time between the final CT image recorded and the first kV image taken in the treatment room. For cases where the CT followed treatment, |Tx-CT| was the time between the end of the final treatment field and the first recorded CT image. This parameter excluded the time required both to treat the patient and to perform the CT scan, as these varied significantly between patients based on case complexity.
Results: The mean value of |Tx-CT| was 23.2 minutes (SD = 12.0 minutes) for the CT simulator group and 8.8 minutes (SD = 3.8 minutes) for the CT-on-rails group. A one-sided Wilcoxon rank-sum test indicated that the distribution of |Tx-CT| values for the CT-on-rails group was significantly lower than that of the CT simulator group (P = 0.00036).
Conclusion: This study indicates that the time between treatment and CT verification can be significantly reduced by employing an in-room CT-on-rails for periodic verification scans, which in turn suggests that a reduction in total time spent under anesthesia may be achieved by this method.
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