ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To test the validity of Ottawa ankle rules (OAR) in our field. To test the agreement physician/nurse in the assessment of the patient with acute ankle injuries. DESIGN: Observational, with application of rules and prospective outcome measurement. SETTING: Hospital emergency departments. PARTICIPANTS: Adults who attended at the emergency department, suffering from a secondary ankle pain to a traumatic injury, from 1st March to 30th September, 1997. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Physicians who participated applied the OAR to the patients and asked for a control radiograph, independently from the result of rules application. 100 patients were valued by a physician and a nurse in order to measure the agreement level. Data from 564 patients were recorded, getting a global sensitivity of the OAR of 97.3% (95% CI 89.7-99.5); specificity of 33.3% (95% CI 29.5-37.3). The positive predictive value was of 15.6 (95% CI 12.4-19.3). Thanks to the application of the rules radiography would reduce by 29.5%. 74 (13.1%) patients suffered form fracture: 48 (8.5%), of the maleolar zone and 26 (4.6%) of the midfoot zone. Attending to the OAR criteria, radiographs wouldn't be necessary in two cases of fracture. CONCLUSIONS: We consider the OAR clinically valuable and useful in our field. They can help to work on the basis of uniform criteria when decisions must be taken and to use properly sanitary resources. Triage nurses can apply them.
Subject(s)
Ankle Injuries/diagnostic imaging , Fractures, Bone/diagnostic imaging , Adult , Emergencies , Humans , Middle Aged , Observer Variation , Prospective Studies , Radiography/statistics & numerical data , Reproducibility of Results , Sensitivity and Specificity , Trauma Severity IndicesABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Several options are available for treating patients with a first episode of primary spontaneous pneumothorax (ISP). The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of two treatment alternatives: puncture-aspiration (PA) using a small caliber catheter, and pleural drainage through a chest tube (DCT). PATIENTS AND METHODS: We compared a current series of 91 patients treated with PA with a retrospective series of 216 patients treated with DCT. PA was performed by emergency room physicians and DCT was performed by chest surgeons. Patients were followed for a period of 24 months. RESULTS: The immediate efficacy of PA was superior to DCT (86.7% versus 76%, p < 0.05). The proportion of recurrences after each treatment was similar (23% and 17%, respectively, NS). Duration of hospital stay was shorter for PA-treated patients (24 h) than for DCT-treated patients (138 h) (p < 0.05). The efficacy of the two procedures 24 months later was similar (63.7% and 62.9%, respectively, NS), and the cost of PA was three times less than that of DCT. CONCLUSIONS: PA is as effective a treatment procedure as DCT. PA is simple enough for emergency room physicians to perform correctly. Inconvenience to the patient, cost to the health care system, and time of hospital stay are all significantly less with PA.
