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Background: Despite the medical benefits of CT, there are concerns about increased cancer risks following CT scans in childhood.Objective: To assess Australian temporal trends in pediatric CT scans funded through Medicare over the period 1985 to 2005, as well as changes in the types of CT scanners used.Materials and Methods: We studied de-identified electronic records of Medicare-funded services, including CT scans, that were available for children and adults younger than 20 years between 1985 and 2005. We assessed temporal trends using CT imaging rates by age, gender and anatomical region. Regulators provided CT scanner registration lists to identify new models installed in Australia and to date the introduction of new technologies.Results: Between 1985 and 2005, 896,306 Medicare-funded CT services were performed on 688,260 individuals younger than 20 years. The imaging rate more than doubled during that time period. There were more than 1,000 CT scanners on registration lists during the study period. There were both a sharp increase in the availability of helical scanning capabilities from 1994 and significant growth in multi-detector CT scanners from 2000.Conclusion: Significant increases in the rate of pediatric CT scanning have occurred in Australia. This rate has stabilized since 2000, possibly a result of better understanding of cancer risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) identify unusually high patient radiation exposures and are required for dose optimisation. DRLs for pediatric fluoroscopic examinations are not widely determined in Australia., Objective: Our objectives were to establish DRLs for pediatric fluoroscopic examinations in a South Australian tertiary hospital and compare these to previously published data and to explore relationships between patient dose area product (DAP), age and fluoroscopy times., Materials and Methods: Dose data from 365 pediatric patients undergoing 5 fluoroscopic examinations were retrospectively collected for a 3-year period commencing January 2018 to develop local DRLs. Relationships between DAP, age and fluoroscopy time were explored using scatterplots, Spearman's correlation, and regression analyses., Results: Local DRLs were significantly lower than data published previously, possibly reflecting technological and procedural advancements. Each 1-year increase in patient age was associated with a 0.77 μGy·m 2 increase in DAP for barium meal and follow-through studies (95% confidence interval [CI]=0.055, 1.48) (P=0.04), and a 1.37 μGy·m 2 increase in DAP for barium swallow studies (95% CI=0.61, 2.12) (P<0.001). A low correlation was demonstrated between DAP and fluoroscopy time for micturating cystourethrography studies (r=0.35, 95% CI=0.15, 0.51, P<0.001) and barium meal and follow-through studies (r=0.37, 95% CI= -0.011, 0.65, P=0.05). Age and fluoroscopy time were not significantly related., Conclusion: This study provides updated Australian pediatric fluoroscopic DRLs, with the intention of promoting a national database for benchmarking pediatric doses. The local DRLs can be used for dose comparisons and optimisation between facilities., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Background: Reference charts depicting normal growth are important for the sonographic assessment of the pediatric kidney. Limited charts are available for clinical use in an Australian population., Objective: To retrospectively collate sonographic renal length measurements in a cohort of low-risk Australian children aged newborn to 16 years to produce a reference table and comparison with other published charts., Materials and Methods: We identified consecutive pediatric patients who were at low risk for renal disease and had renal lengths measured. After exclusions, we included 941 renal lengths (male 490, female 451). We used linear regression to estimate the relationship of renal length with age, gender and side. We calculated percentile values of renal length according to age categories., Results: No statistically significant differences in mean renal length were observed between males and females, or for left and right kidneys. We tabulated reference data and provide them in a reference chart (1-, 2.5-, 5-, 10-, 50-, 90-, 97.5- and 99-percentiles)., Conclusion: We calculated new reference ranges for pediatric renal length using a larger cohort than previously published, from a population with diverse ethnicity.