CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne
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Multicenter Study
Validation of the Ottawa Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Rule in patients with acute headache.
We previously derived the Ottawa Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Rule to identify subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) in patients with acute headache. Our objective was to validate the rule in a new cohort of consecutive patients who visited an emergency department. ⋯ We found that the Ottawa SAH Rule was sensitive for identifying subarachnoid hemorrhage in otherwise alert and neurologically intact patients. We believe that the Ottawa SAH Rule can be used to rule out this serious diagnosis, thereby decreasing the number of cases missed while constraining rates of neuroimaging.