Clinical decision rule to prevent unnecessary chest X-ray in patients with blunt multiple traumas.

Background: Since the diagnostic yield of chest X-ray (CXR) is not high enough, when it is ordered for all the multiple trauma patients, this study was aimed to evaluate the relationship between clinical and CXR findings in order to formulate a clinical decision rule to prevent unnecessary CXR in these patients.

Methods: Stable multiple blunt trauma patients referring to the ED were included. The clinical and radiographic findings of all the patients were collected and the relationships between these variables analysed.