• David Sayer, Ben Bloom, Katalin Fernando, Stuart Jones, Sally Benton, Shumontha Dev, Sathish Deverapalli, and Tim Harris.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Queen's Hospital, Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust, Romford, Essex.
• Acad Emerg Med. 2015 Nov 1; 22 (11): 1267-73.

ObjectivesThe objective was to determine the incidence of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) diagnosed by lumbar puncture (LP) when the head computed tomography (CT) was reported as demonstrating no subarachnoid blood.MethodsData were obtained on patients who received LP to diagnose or exclude SAH attending six hospitals over 5 years. Subsequent investigations and outcomes were reviewed in all patients with LPs that did not exclude SAH.ResultsA total of 2,248 patients were included. A total of 1,898 LPs were suitable for biochemical analysis, of which 92 (4.8%) were positive for blood, suggesting SAH; 1,507 (79.4%) were negative; and 299 (15.6%) were inconclusive. Of the 92 patients with positive cerebrospinal fluid analysis, eight patients (0.4%) had aneurysms on further imaging, and one had a carotid cavernous fistula.ConclusionsIn patients presenting to the emergency department with acute severe headache, LP to diagnose or exclude SAH after negative head CT has a very low diagnostic yield, due to low prevalence of the disease and uninterpretable or inconclusive samples. A clinical decision rule may improve diagnostic yield by selecting patients requiring further evaluation with LP following nondiagnostic or normal noncontrast CT brain imaging.© 2015 by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

23 keywords...

hide…