Computed Tomography in Blunt Abdominal Trauma

Emergency abdominal computed tomography (CT) has been performed in more than 200 cases of acute blunt abdominal trauma. Computed tomography was highly sensitive and specific for a wide variety of intraperitoneal and retroperitoneal traumatic lesions. There were no false-positive or false-negative CT interpretations, except for a single case in which residual peritoneal lavage fluid was mistaken for intraperitoneal blood. Computed tomography has major advantages over other radiologic techniques, including angiography, and may obviate peritoneal lavage and exploratory laparotomy in some circumstances.