Suspected body packers may be brought to emergency departments (EDs) close to international airports for abdominal computed tomography (CT) scanning. Senior emergency clinicians may be asked to interpret these CT scans. Missing concealed drug packages have important clinical and forensic implications. The accuracy of emergency clinician interpretation of abdominal CT scans for concealed drugs is not known. Limited evidence suggests that accuracy for identification of concealed packages can be increased by viewing CT images on "lung window" settings.To determine the accuracy of senior emergency clinicians in interpreting abdominal CT scans for concealed drugs, and to determine if this accuracy was improved by viewing scans on both abdominal and lung window settings.Emergency clinicians blinded to all patient identifiers and the radiology report interpreted CT scans of suspected body packers using standard abdominal window settings and then with the addition of lung window settings. The reference standard was the radiologist's report.Fifty-five emergency clinicians reported 235 CT scans. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of interpretation using abdominal windows was 89.9

作者：Stephen Edward, Asha；Andrew, Cooke

来源：The Journal of emergency medicine 2015 年 49卷 3期