This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (3)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Venous Thromboembolism  • Cardiovascular System  • Statistics and Research Methods  • Diagnosis  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Frederikus A. Klok, MD; Inge C. M. Mos, MD; Mathilde Nijkeuter, MD, PhD; Marc Righini, MD, PhD; Arnaud Perrier, MD, PhD; Grégoire Le Gal, MD, PhD; Menno V. Huisman, MD, PhD

Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(19):2131-2136.

Background  The revised Geneva score is a fully standardized clinical decision rule (CDR) in the diagnostic workup of patients with suspected pulmonary embolism (PE). The variables of the decision rule have different weights, which could lead to miscalculations in an acute setting. We have validated a simplified version of the revised Geneva score.

Methods  Data from 1049 patients from 2 large prospective diagnostic trials that included patients with suspected PE were used and combined to validate the simplified revised Geneva score. We constructed the simplified CDR by attributing 1 point to each item of the original CDR and compared the diagnostic accuracy of the 2 versions by a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. We also assessed the clinical utility of the simplified CDR by evaluating the safety of ruling out PE on the basis of the combination of either a low-intermediate clinical probability (using a 3-level scheme) or a "PE unlikely" assessment (using a dichotomized rule) with a normal result on a highly sensitive D-dimer test.

Results  The complete study population had an overall prevalence of venous thromboembolism of 23%. The diagnostic accuracy between the 2 CDRs did not differ (area under the curve for the revised Geneva score was 0.75 [95% confidence interval, 0.71-0.78] vs 0.74 [0.70-0.77] for the simplified revised Geneva score). During 3 months of follow-up, no patient with a combination of either a low (0%; 95% confidence interval, 0.0%-1.7%) or intermediate (0%; 0.0%-2.8%) clinical probability, or a "PE unlikely" assessment (0%; 0.0%-1.2%) with the simplified score and a normal result of a D-dimer test was diagnosed as having venous thromboembolism.

Conclusion  This study suggests that simplification of the revised Geneva score does not lead to a decrease in diagnostic accuracy and clinical utility, which should be confirmed in a prospective study.

Author Affiliations: Section of Vascular Medicine, Department of General Internal Medicine–Endocrinology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands (Drs Klok, Mos, Nijkeuter, and Huisman); Divisions of Angiology and Haemostasis (Dr Righini) and General Internal Medicine (Dr Perrier), Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland; and Division of Internal Medicine and Pulmonology, Hopital de la Cavale Blanche and Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France (Dr Le Gal).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Update on acute pulmonary embolism
Sanchez et al.
ERR 2009;18:137-147.
FULL TEXT  

D-Dimers and Efficacy of Clinical Risk Estimation Algorithms: Sensitivity in Evaluation of Acute Pulmonary Embolism
Gupta et al.
Am. J. Roentgenol. 2009;193:425-430.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

An Easier Diagnostic Tool to Rule Out PE? Maybe.
Journal Watch Hospital Medicine 2009;2009:1-1.
FULL TEXT