Accuracy of Ultrasound for Diagnosis of Femur Bone Fractures in Traumatic Patients

Abstract

Objective: to evaluate the safety and applicability of the ultrasound diagnostic procedure in comparison to Radiography for detecting femur bone fractures in lower limbs. Methods: We assessed 30 injured patients with suspected femur bones fracture that had presented to the ED. The patients were older than 18 years that transferred to the resuscitation room of the ED. Then, bedside ultrasound was performed for them. After the clinical conditions became stable, the patients were referred to the radiography unit for imaging. The findings are separately and blindly assessed, then would be compared with together. Sensitivity, specificity, the positive and negative predictive values and P-value were measured to appraisal the accuracy of ultrasound as compared with radiography (gold standard). Results: The results of sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV for bones fracture of femur with linear array transducer of portable sonography and P-value not significant statistically. Sensitivity, positive predictive value and P-value for diagnosis of femur shaft fractures with deep array transducer of ultrasound were 90%, 47.3% and 0.0006 (<0.05), respectively. Conclusion: In our study, evidences showed ultrasound is accurate equally to radiography for fractures diagnosis of shaft of femur in lower limb with deep array transducer of ultrasound in adults.