52 in 52 #30 emDOCs - By Brannon Inman - March 30th, 2023
Clinical question: In patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage, what is the sensitivity of modern multi-slice CT scanners at incremental time points from time of symptom onset?
My take:
- This is a single center retrospective analysis offering promising data that noncontrast head CTs may have adequate sensitivity up to 24 hours of headache onset. However, I will not be incorporating this into my practice just yet.
- ACEP does support using a negative head CT within 6 hours of symptom onset to preclude the need for other diagnostic workup for SAH (Level B). I’m looking forward to more data on time windows past 6 hours.