You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 17, Issue 1
  • Third-generation CT has 100% sensitivity and specificity for identifying subarachnoid haemorrhage when it is carried out within 6 h of headache onset

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Diagnostics
Cohort study
Third-generation CT has 100% sensitivity and specificity for identifying subarachnoid haemorrhage when it is carried out within 6 h of headache onset
  1. Robert F McCormack
  1. Department of Emergency Medicine, Buffalo General Hospital, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA
  1. Correspondence to Robert F McCormack
    Department of Emergency Medicine, Buffalo General Hospital, 100 High Street, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA; rmccormack{at}kaleidahealth.org

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebm.2011.100214

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Commentary on: Perry JJ, Stiell IG, Sivilotti ML, et al. Sensitivity of computed tomography performed within six hours of onset of headache for diagnosis of subarachnoid haemorrhage: prospective cohort study. BMJ 2011;343:d4277.OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text

    Context

    A complaint of acute onset headache mandates that subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) be excluded as the cause. Because of the less than perfect sensitivity of unenhanced head CT, standard practice is to follow a negative CT with lumbar puncture (LP) to exclude subarachnoid haemorrhage. Improvements in CT technology have raised the question of whether modern third-generation CT scanners are sensitive enough to adequately exclude subarachnoid haemorrhage.

    Methods

    This was a prospective multicentre cohort study conducted at 11 university affiliated tertiary care teaching hospitals in Canada between November 2000 and December 2009. Consecutive patients aged 15 or older who presented with acute non-traumatic headache or with syncope associated with a headache were eligible for the study. CT scans were ordered at …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None.