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Bedside Ultrasound Identifies Congestive Heart Failure

NCT00833144 · Status: COMPLETED · Type: OBSERVATIONAL · Enrollment: 375

Last updated 2013-12-13

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Patients often arrive to the Emergency Department with the chief complaint of shortness of breath. The cause of the shortness of breath may be due to many things, such as pneumonia, emphysema, a heart attack, heart failure, and others. It is often very difficult for the physician to determine the cause of the shortness of breath in the first two hours in the Emergency Department. This ambiguity makes treating the patient very difficult. Although a patient could benefit from treatment upon arrival, the emergent treatment of the condition must wait until a final diagnosis is made.

Recently, emergency physicians have been using portable ultrasound at the patient's bedside to diagnose numerous conditions, including trauma, blood clots, kidney stones, etc. Recent research suggests that heart failure, one of the causes of shortness of breath, may be diagnosed within 5 minutes or less using ultrasound. Most of these studies come from the intensive care and cardiology. However, no research has yet been performed to determine if emergency physicians can effectively use ultrasound to quickly diagnose and treat heart failure within the first few minutes of a patient's arrival to the emergency department. The hypothesis of this study is to evaluate the ability of residents in emergency medicine to use ultrasound to diagnose patients in heart failure who presented with the chief complaint of shortness of breath. The final diagnosis of the patient upon discharge from the hospital will be compared to the preliminary diagnosis based on the portable ultrasound findings.

Conditions

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Emory University

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • William Manson, MD · Emory University

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2009-02-28
Primary Completion
2010-02-28
Completion
2011-02-28

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT00833144 on ClinicalTrials.gov