Ultrasonographic measurement of aortic diameter by emergency physicians approximates results obtained by computed tomography

Systematic Review: Emergency Department Bedside Ultrasonography for Diagnosing Suspected Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm

“…36,37 One study by Lanoix et al 38 was excluded because the data were republished in a later study, which was included in our review. Seven studies met our selection criteria [39][40][41][42][43][44][45] ( Figure 1). The seven included studies were read in their entirety, and two authors (ER and NM) independently abstracted the data and each author's results were checked for accuracy by a third author (RS).…”

“…Sex distribution was only reported by Tayal et al 43 and Knaut et al 44 to be 51 and 54% men, respectively.…”

“…Five of the seven studies reported the age of included patients: in Kuhn et al, 40 Rowland et al, 41 and Knaut et al 44 study age was greater than 50 years; in Costantino et al 45 study age was greater than 55 years; and in Tayal et al 43 study mean age was reported as 66 years. Jones et al 42 and Lanoix et al 39 did not report Figure 1.…”

“…The level of training of the ED ultrasonographer varied from second-year residents in Knaut et al, 44 to 3 years' postgraduate experience by Kuhn et al 40 and Rowland et al 41 The level of US training also varied; five studies reported that EPs underwent US didactic courses and workshops ranging from 4 to 7 hours (Lanoix et al, 39 Jones et al, 42 and Knaut et al) 44 to 3 days (Kuhn et al 40 and Rowland et al). 41 Tayal et al 43 and Costantino et al 45 reported that EPs had completed 50 to 150 emergency US scans prior to the start of the study.…”

“…Knaut et al 44 defined one modality, CT scan, as their reference standard. Lanoix et al 39 used only the radiologist interpretation of the ED US as their reference standard.…”