Análisis crítico de un artículo: ¿Podemos descartar la presencia de hemorragia subaracnoidea con la combinación de tomografía computada cerebral y punción lumbar negativas?

Study objective: Current clinical practice assumes a negative computed tomography (CT) head sean result and a negative lumbar puncture result together are adequate to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage in patients with acute headache. Our objective is to determine the sensitivity of a negative CT resu...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zavala G,Cynthia, Aravena L,Carlos
Lenguaje:Spanish / Castilian
Publicado: Sociedad Médica de Santiago 2008
Acceso en línea:http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0034-98872008000900019
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Study objective: Current clinical practice assumes a negative computed tomography (CT) head sean result and a negative lumbar puncture result together are adequate to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage in patients with acute headache. Our objective is to determine the sensitivity of a negative CT result combined with a negative lumbar puncture result to exelude subarachnoid hemorrhage. Methods: This prospective cohort study was conducted at 2 tertiary care emergency departments (EDs) during 3 years. We enrolled all patients who were older than 15 years, had a nontraumatic acute headache and normal neurologic examination result, and who had a CT head sean and a lumbar puncture ifthe CT result was negative (ie, no blood in the subarachnoid space). Patients were followed up with a structured telephone questionnaire 6 to 36 months añer their ED visit and electronic hospital records review to ensure no missed subarachnoid hemorrhage. We calculated sensitivity, specifícity, and likelihood ratios of the strategy of CT and then lumbar puncture for subarachnoid hemorrhage. Results: Five hundred ninety-two patients were enrolled, including 61 with subarachnoid hemorrhage. The mean patient age was 43.6 years, with 59.1% female patients. Aneases of subarachnoid hemorrhage were identified on initial CT or lumbar puncture. One patient without subarachnoid hemorrhage was subsequently diagnosed with cerebral aneurysm, requiring surgery. The strategy classifíed patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage with sensitivity, specifícity, and positive and negative likelihood ratios (with 95% confidence intervals fCIsJ) of 100% (95% CI94% to 100%), 67% (95% CI 63% to 71%), 3.03 (95% CI 2.69 to 3.53), and 0. For diagnosis of subarachnoid hemorrhage or aneurysm, these were 98% (95% CI91% to 100%), 67% (95% CI63% to 71%), 2.98 (95% CI2.63 to 3.38), and 0.02 (95% CI0.00 to 0.17), respectively. Conclusión: To our knowledge, this is the largestprospective study evaluating the aecuracy of a strategy of CT and lumbar puncture to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage in alert ED patients with an acute headache. This study validates clinical practice that a negative CT with a negative lumbar puncture is sufficient to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage.