Bedside Ultrasound Identifies Congestive Heart Failure

Completed

Conditions studied: Heart Failure, Dyspnea

In brief

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.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT00833144

Run by

Emory University

People needed

375

Starts

2009-02-01

Expected to finish

2011-02-01

Last updated by the study team

2013-12-13

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• age > 18
• presenting complaint of shortness of breath or dyspnea

You may not qualify if…

• prisoners
• pregnant women
• shortness of breath clearly secondary to another diagnosis (i.e. trauma)

Where it is running

• Grady Memorial Hospital — Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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