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- Title
Dizziness in the Emergency Room: Diagnoses and Misdiagnoses.
- Authors
Royl, Georg; Ploner, Christoph J.; Leithner, Christoph
- Abstract
Background: Dizziness is among the most frequent neurological chief complaints in emergency room (ER) patients. Although the majority of underlying disorders are benign, serious causes that require immediate in-hospital treatment may occur that are difficult to identify clinically. Methods: Retrospective study of 475 consecutive ER neurological consultations with dizziness as the chief complaint. Results: Of all ER dizziness patients, 73% were initially assigned to benign and 27% to serious diagnoses. The two most frequent disorders were benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (22%) and stroke (20%). On follow-up (available in 124 patients), 43% of all ER diagnoses were corrected: 6% of benign ER diagnoses were corrected to serious diagnoses, 23% of serious ER diagnoses were revised to benign. The most frequent corrections concerned patients with an ER diagnosis of stroke or vestibular neuronitis. Conclusions: In the patient sample studied here, serious causes of dizziness were more prevalent than can be expected from population-based surveys or data from specialized outpatient departments. However, inappropriate assignment of dizziness patients to benign diagnoses still occurred in a relevant proportion of patients. ER clinical pathways, planning of imaging resources and follow-up of patients in- and outside the hospital must take these points into consideration. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel
- Subjects
DIZZINESS; HOSPITAL emergency services; NEUROLOGIC manifestations of general diseases; VERTIGO; DIAGNOSTIC errors
- Publication
European Neurology, 2011, Vol 66, Issue 5, p256
- ISSN
0014-3022
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1159/000331046