CT Imaging Protocol at TASH, Ethiopia

The study was conducted at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital (TASH), which is the largest tertiary referral hospital in Ethiopia, where CT was performed on a 128-slice-MDCT scanner (Philips computed tomography). The routine practice in the CT scanning procedure is as follows. Before scanning, the patients were instructed to fast for two to four hours. Most of the scanning was performed with preset peak tube voltage and tube current. First, unenhanced images were acquired then followed by a fixed dose of 100 ml of nonionic contrast material (350–370 mg/ml) which was administered using the traditional (manual) mode of contrast injection (as automatic contrast injectors are unavailable). After postprocessing, the image is sent to PACS (picture archiving and communication software) Medweb software.