WITHDRAWN: Prognosis of patients with syncope seen in accident and emergency: A comparison of four different risk scores recommended by European society of cardiology guidelines

Abstract

Aims: To apply, analyse and compare the four syncope risk scores recommended by the 2009 European guidelines and the different parameters they use to predict death, syncope recurrence and hospital readmission in the population seen in the accident and emergency department (AE 50.7% were women. Patients were evaluated using the four risk scores and were followed up for at least 2 years. Two hundred and seventy-five patients (85.2%) were discharged directly from A&E after evaluation. During 28 ± 5 months of follow-up, 8% died, 18.3% presented a further syncopal episode and 18.6% were readmitted to hospital. Only two of the four risk scores were useful in risk discrimination but no statistically significant differences were detected between predicted risk and observed risk. Multivariate analysis revealed relationships between the age and death, a history of cardiovascular disease and syncope recurrence and between presyncopal palpitations and hospital readmission. Conclusion: Although a large number of events occur after syncope, the risk scores recommended by guidelines overestimate risk but there were no statistically significant differences between observed and predicted risk.