Abstract
Up to 10 % of all patients at the Emergency Department present for acute abdominal pain. The C-reactive protein (CRP) and white blood cell (WBC) are routinely determined as part of the workup of patients with abdominal pain. Three large prospective cohort studies comprising a total of 2961 adult patients with acute abdominal pain were selected. CRP levels and WBC counts were compared between patients with urgent and nonurgent final diagnoses. These studies conclude that the laboratory values individually are weak discriminators and cannot be used as a triage instrument in the selection of patients with acute abdominal pain requiring additional diagnostic tests.
References
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Gans SL et al (2015) C-Reactive protein and white blood cell count as triage test between urgent and nonurgent conditions in 2961 patients with acute abdominal pain. Medicine 94(9):1–9
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All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animal performed by any of the author.
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Paolillo, C., Spallino, I. & Gruppo di Autoformazione Metodologica (GrAM). Can C-reactive protein and white blood cell count alone rule out an urgent condition in acute abdominal pain?. Intern Emerg Med 11, 141–142 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11739-015-1333-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11739-015-1333-2