The evaluation level of acute trauma pathologies by the emergency medicine physician assistant in abdominal computed tomography images of the trauma patients

Abstract

Abdominal injury is the third leading cause of death due to trauma. In this study, it is aimed to investigate the level of detection of acute trauma pathologies by the emergency medicine physician assistant in abdominal tomography images taken in trauma patients. Contrast-enhanced abdominal tomography images of 207 patients who applied with trauma between 12.15.2020 and 12.15.2021 were included in this study. In order to evaluate the images of the patients, the evaluation of the emergency medicine physician assistant was compared with the radiology official report. Patients’ age, gender, current complaints, symptoms, trauma classification, injury sites accompanying abdominal injury, hospitalization status and mortality rates were analyzed. The statistical distribution of the
patients’ demographic and clinical information was calculated. The reports of the patients whose radiology official report was issued and the emergency medicine assistant forms were transferred to the SPSS program as “pathology exists” or “no pathology”. In the study, 79.2% (n=164) were male and 20.8% (n=43) were female. The median age was 33 years. In terms of interpretation of abdominal tomography, a statistically significant correlation was found between the radiologist and the emergency medicine physician assistant in the evaluation of liver, spleen and kidney; intra-abdominal and retroperitoneal hemorrhage, muscle and fascia injury of abdominal wall; vertebral, iliac, ischiatic, pubic bone, sacrum and femoral neck fracture. It was determined that 12.1% (n=25) of the patients
were admitted to the intensive care unit and 5.3% (n=11) were died. High sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were found in the evaluation of abdominal contrast-enhanced tomography imaging of patients admitted to the emergency department due to trauma by the emergency medicine assistant. We think that these high accuracy values are due to emergency medicine physician assistant’s evaluation of the patient’s history, physical examination and imaging studies as a whole.