What Doctors Don't Tell YouPlain skull radiographs should be abandoned as a means of detecting intracranial bleeding in people with mild head injury, according to Dutch investigators.
The results of a review of studies showed that skull radiography has only 38 per cent sensitivity too low to show the serious internal bleeding which occurs in about 8 per cent of cases. Observation and, if necessary, computed tomography, say the researchers, is still the best way to detect intracranial bleeding (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatr, 2000; 68: 416-22).
Daniel Redwood DC
Tom Ferguson MD
