AI Article Synopsis

  • Small bowel obstruction (SBO) is a frequent reason for acute abdominal pain in emergency settings, but a definitive diagnostic method is still unclear.
  • This systematic review evaluated 21 studies with nearly 2,000 patients to determine how accurate ultrasonography is for diagnosing SBO, using comprehensive statistical analysis.
  • The results indicate ultrasonography has a high sensitivity (93%) and good specificity (80%) for SBO diagnosis, suggesting it is a promising tool, though further global studies are needed to reinforce these findings.

Article Abstract

Introduction: Small bowel obstruction (SBO) is known as a common cause of acute abdominal complaints in the emergency department (ED). The modality of choice for the diagnosis of SBO has not yet been established. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the accuracy of ultrasonography for the diagnosis of SBO.

Methods: Systematic search was performed on five electronic databases including Medline, Scopus, Web of Sciences, Embase, and Cochrane Library, and the retrieval period was from the inception of each database to November 2023. The quality of the included studies were investigated using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 (QUADAS-2). The pooled values of diagnostic characteristics for ultrasonography were estimated using meta-Disc and Stata statistical software.

Results: Twenty-one studies with a total of 1977 patients were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled estimate for sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and area under the summary ROC curve of ultrasonography for diagnosing SBO were 0.93 (95% CI: 0.91-0.95), 0.8 (95% CI: 0.77-0.83), 5.69 (95% CI: 3.64-8.89), 0.1 (95% CI: 0.07-0.16), 83.51 (95% CI: 18.12-182.91) and 0.96, respectively.

Conclusion: The findings of this meta-analysis showed that the utilization of ultrasonography holds promise as a diagnostic imaging for SBO with high accuracy. However, additional worldwide studies are essential to get more evidence on the value of ultrasonography for the diagnosis of SBO.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11077389PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.22037/aaem.v12i1.2265DOI Listing

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