Syncope in the Pediatric Emergency Department
Syncope in the Pediatric Emergency Department
The vast majority of patients presenting with syncope in an acute care setting have a noncardiac etiology for their event. Our study clarifies the prior estimates of cardiac disease in syncopal patients and also establishes the incidence of new cardiac diagnoses in children presenting with syncope in the ED, which is quite low. Certainly, providers should continue to utilize a detailed patient medical history, a multigenerational family history, a comprehensive physical examination, and a thoughtful review of the ECG in their syncope evaluations. These data, however, provide an additional screening tool that ED providers can use to help safely and efficiently rule out potentially ominous cardiovascular causes while, at the same time, determining which patients need further cardiovascular evaluation. In this way, we hope our data will help providers find the high-risk patients, decrease variability in evaluations, and eliminate unnecessary testing. This study provides the background data to justify a prospective study utilizing this screening algorithm to further elucidate the findings.
Conclusion
The vast majority of patients presenting with syncope in an acute care setting have a noncardiac etiology for their event. Our study clarifies the prior estimates of cardiac disease in syncopal patients and also establishes the incidence of new cardiac diagnoses in children presenting with syncope in the ED, which is quite low. Certainly, providers should continue to utilize a detailed patient medical history, a multigenerational family history, a comprehensive physical examination, and a thoughtful review of the ECG in their syncope evaluations. These data, however, provide an additional screening tool that ED providers can use to help safely and efficiently rule out potentially ominous cardiovascular causes while, at the same time, determining which patients need further cardiovascular evaluation. In this way, we hope our data will help providers find the high-risk patients, decrease variability in evaluations, and eliminate unnecessary testing. This study provides the background data to justify a prospective study utilizing this screening algorithm to further elucidate the findings.
