Study on the value of focused abdominal sonography for trauma used by emergency doctor in emergency department

Abstract

Objective To study the value of focused abdominal sonography for trauma (FAST) used by emergency doctor in emergency department. Method It's a prospective,double-blinded and controlled study from June 2008 to October 2009. A total of 97 casualties with severe multiple trauma, 72 male and 25 female aged from 14 to 88 years old with average age of (41 ± 16) ,admitted to emergency department were enrolled, and the bedside focused abdominal sonography for trauma was performed by emergency doctor. It was diagnosed as positive if free fluid was detected in abdomen or pericardium. The severe injury scores (ISS) were from 14 to 38 with average score of (23.2±9.3). The criteria of inclusion were age over 14 years old, injury happened within 12 hours and casualties admitted directly into emergency room. The criteria of exclusion were death of patients within 2 days without CT scanning of abdomen and exploration of abdomen with laporotomy, and operations directly determined by using FAST without conventinal sonographic examination. The FAST was compared with CT and conventional sonography judged by the findings observed during operation. Results The examination with FAST was completed in (3.18±0.79) min, whereas that with conventional sonography was (16.63t4.62) min(t = 28.61,P ＜0.001). The FAST was positive in 11 cases and negative in 86 cases, whereas the conventional sonography was positive in 13 cases and negative in 84 cases ( P = 0.5). There were 4 false negative findings in FAST resulting in 73% sensitivity, 100% specificity, 95.3% negative predictive value, 4.6% false negative rate, 100% positive predictive value, 0% false positive rate and 95.9% accuracy. Conclusions The emergency doctors are able to operate the FAST well for casualties with multiple trauma in emergency department after proper training. Key words: Multiple trauma; Abdominal trauma; Focused abdominal sonography; Emergency; Hydropericardium; Seroperitoneum; Trauma assessment