Comparison of clinically suspected injuries with injuries detected at whole-body CT in suspected multi-trauma victims

Clinical suspicion of injury correlates poorly with findings at WBCT, with a high proportion of uninjured body areas. The number of unsuspected injuries found at WBCT was low, but the majority of these were serious injuries, possibly masked by distracting injury to other body areas. The use of a WBCT protocol is recommended for suspected polytrauma, but regular monitoring of WBCT findings and regular feedback of the results to emergency physicians is suggested to help inform their selection of patients for trauma WBCT.