European Society of Emergency Radiology: guideline on radiological polytrauma imaging and service (short version)

Once a patient has been accurately classified as polytrauma, each institution should be able to choose from at least two WBCT protocols. One protocol should be optimised regarding time and precision, and is already used by most institutions (variant A). The second protocol should be dose reduced and used for clinically stable and oriented patients who nonetheless require a CT because the history suggests possible serious injury (variant B). Reading, interpretation and communication of the report should be structured clinically following the ABCDE format, i.e. diagnose first what kills first.