Abstract
Objective
Abdominal pain is a common complaint in the emergency department and accurate diagnosis
of its etiology may affect the patient's outcome.
Method
Patients with abdominal pain underwent ultrasound study first by trained emergency
physicians and then by radiologists blinded to emergency physician's results.
Result
Emergency physician who performed bedside ultrasound had 78% diagnostic accuracy.
Emergency physicians showed better results in diagnosing some entities (abdominal
aortic aneurysm and renal stones) than the others (acute appendicitis, cholelithiasis,
and cholecystitis).
Conclusion
Bedside ultrasound can accurately identify the etiology of acute nontraumatic abdominal
pain in the hands of emergency physicians.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 20, 2015
Accepted:
January 13,
2015
Received in revised form:
January 7,
2015
Received:
September 10,
2014
Footnotes
☆Statement of conflict of interest: There is no conflict of interest between authors.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
