Bedside Ultrasound Identifies Congestive Heart Failure

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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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.

Official Title
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Emergency Physician-Performed Thoracic Ultrasound Rapidly Identifies Patients With Congestive Heart Failure

Conditions
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Heart Failure, Dyspnea

Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: age > 18 presenting complaint of shortness of breath or dyspnea Exclusion Criteria: prisoners pregnant women shortness of breath clearly secondary to another diagnosis (i.e. trauma)

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| 1<br>Congestive Heart Failure | |
| 2<br>Patients without congestive heart failure | |

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| sensitivity and specificity of the ultrasound lung rockets to predict congestive heart failure |  | One year | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| comparison of the BNP with the thoracic ultrasound findings |  | One year | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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heart failure, dyspnea, ultrasound