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Background The number of cancer patients visiting the emergency department (ED) is increasing globally, and this has highlighted the importance of diagnosing and coping with related life-threatening complications early. There may be efficacy in employing multi-organ point-of-care ultrasonography (M-PoCUS) for this purpose; however, there has been no study on the usefulness of this diagnostic tool for cancer patients only. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of M-PoCUS for a life-threatening condition in cancer patients who visited the ED.Methods We conducted a retrospective observational study in one tertiary university hospital ED in Seoul, Republic of Korea. We selected three emergency medicine specialists to perform a protocolized M-PoCUS evaluation of cancer patients according to the requests of emergency physicians since the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic began. We enrolled 94 cancer patients in the study. The M-PoCUS diagnosis was then compared with an audit diagnosis. The primary outcomes measured were the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of M-PoCUS in the above-described diagnosis.Results The M-PoCUS showed a sensitivity of 83% (95% CI, 61-95), specificity of 96% (95% CI, 88-99), positive predictive value of 86% (95% CI, 65-97), and negative predictive value of 94% (95% CI, 85-97). M-PoCUS produced 4 false negative (4.3%) pulmonary thromboembolism diagnoses and 3 false positive (3.2%) pleural effusion diagnoses. Conclusions M-PoCUS was useful in ruling out a life-threatening condition among the cancer patients. However, pulmonary thromboembolism was hard to distinguish using M-PoCUS due to pre-existing diseases scattered in cancer patients’ thorax. |
