The study of diagnostic test of using the ten-point scale for the early fat embolism syndrome

Abstract

Objective To explore the clinical value of the ten-point scale in the early diagnosis of fat embolism syndrome.Methods The data of 129 patients with fat embolism syndrome diagnosed by Gurd criteria admitted from January 1993 to February 2012 were analyzed retrospectively.At the same time,another 97 patients with single or multiple long bone fracture and/or pelvic fracture without fat embolism admitted from July 2005 to February 2012 were enrolled as control group.Patients were excluded if they had any of the following diseases:simple brain trauma,thoracic injury,spine fracture,hemorrhagic shock and the complications of cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation (CPCR).The patients of two groups were comparable in respect of clinical setting.The clinical data were analyzed and scored by the ten-point scale.The x2 test were applied to statistical works.Results Among all the clinical characteristics,the incidence of increased D-dimer was the highest (74.1％) in early fat embolism syndrome,followed by the progressive decrease in hemoglobin (63.6％) and hypoxemia (57.4％),and the occurrence of dyspnea was the lowest (17.8％).The percentage of total scores over ten points in patients with fat embolism syndrome group was higher than that in those without fat embolism syndrome (x2 =202.6,P ＜ 0.01).The sensitivity of tenpoint scale was 96.12％ and the specificity was 99.8％.Conclusions Ten-point scale could be used to make early diagnosis of fat embolism syndrome,thereby reducing the occurrence of misdiagnosis and misseddiagnosis. Key words: Ten-point scale; Fat embolism syndrome; Early diagnosis; Differential diagnosis