[Usefulness of clinical prediction rules for ruling out deep vein thrombosis in a hospital emergency department].

Objectives: To compare the efficacy of the most familiar clinical prediction rules in combination with D-dimer testing to rule out a diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in a hospital emergency department.

Material And Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional analysis of the case records of all patients attending a hospital emergency department with suspected lower-limb DVT between 1998 and 2002. Ten clinical prediction scores were calculated and D-dimer levels were available for all patients.