San Francisco Syncope Rule
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The San Francisco Syncope Rule (SFSR) is a simple rule for evaluating the risk of adverse outcomes in patient who present with fainting or syncope.
The mnemonic for features of the rule is CHESS:
• C - History of congestive heart failure
• H - Hematocrit < 30%
• E - Abnormal EKG
• S - Shortness of breath
• S - Triage systolic blood pressure < 90
A patient with any of the above measures is considered at high risk for a serious outcome (death, MI, arrhythmia, PE, stroke, SAH, need for transfusion, return emergency department visits within 30 days).
SFSR has a sensitivity of 74-98% and specificity of 56%.[1] [2] This means that 74-98% of patients who had a serious outcome had a positive test. This makes the test good for ruling out hospital admissions for patients with syncope.
Syncope accounts for 1-2% emergency department visits. Half are hospitalized and of these, 50% have unclear diagnosis and 85% will be simply monitored. Given these statistics, the SFSR will help reduce inefficient admissions.
[edit] References
- ^ Quinn J, McDermott D, Stiell I, Kohn M, Wells G (May 2006). "Prospective validation of the San Francisco Syncope Rule to predict patients with serious outcomes". Ann Emerg Med 47 (5): 448–54. doi:. PMID 16631985.
- ^ Birnbaum A, Esses D, Bijur P, Wollowitz A, Gallagher EJ (February 2008). "Failure to Validate the San Francisco Syncope Rule in an Independent Emergency Department Population". Ann Emerg Med. doi:. PMID 18282636.
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