Facilitating the Diagnostic Process of the Patients with Complaint of Acute Limb Swelling in Emergency Room; a Brief Report

Abstract

Introduction: Limb swelling is among the frequent complaints of patients referring to the emergency room (ER).

Objective: We decided to take a step towards facilitating the diagnostic process of patients who refer to ER with such complaint, and find out whether emergency medicine physicians (EMPs) can play an effective role in this regard.

Methods: This was a diagnostic accuracy study in which all patients who referred to the ER with a complaint of unilateral leg swelling were studied. The patients underwent bedside sonography by the researchers, who were emergency medicine physicians (EMPs), and also underwent a second sonography by the in-charge radiologist using the same device and probe. The accuracy of the diagnoses made by researchers was evaluated using the radiologists’ opinion as the gold standard.

Results: In this study, the data of 52 patients were analyzed. In general, the agreement rate between the EMPs and radiologists was 0.863, which indicates a proper agreement. Based on the findings, Kappa agreement for the four differential diagnoses ranged from 0.639 to 0.919 and the AUC was between 0.750 and 0.976.

Conclusions: In this study, the overall agreement between the EMPs and radiologists was appropriate.