Emergency Medicine Literature of Note February 1, 2016 - Posted by Ryan Radecki
There are a few major questions to be addressed in patients with suspected renal colic:
- Is there an infection?
- If there is a stone, will it pass spontaneously or require urologic intervention?
- If I make a clinical diagnosis without CT, will I miss an important alternative diagnosis mimicking stone?
The STONE score addresses the last question – using a weighted decision instrument to classify patients with suspected stone into low-, moderate-, and high-risk cohorts for ureteral stone disease. There are some issues with face validity for STONE, and likewise the validation has shown its performance to be somewhat inexact. However, it helps reinforce gestalt and aids in shared decision-making...
...The answer: only marginally."
*
