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Value of Head CT Scan in the Emergency Department in Patients with Vertigo without Focal Neurological Abnormalities

BACKGROUND:Vertigo is a common symptom and reason for admissionto the emergencydepartment (ED). AIM: This research aimedto determine the incidence of clinically significant findings on computed tomography (CT) in patients with vertigo without focal neurological abnormalities in the ED.MATERIAL AND METHODS:The results of the native CT scans in the EDwere retrospectively analysed. Exclusion criteria included: focal neurological abnormalities, underlying malignancy, brain metastasis, previous brain operation, headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, head trauma, coagulopathy. As a clinically significant finding, we took into an accounttumour, haemorrhageand acute ischemic lesion. 72 patients fulfilled the set criteria, present vertigo, without focal neurological abnormalities. Out of 72 patients with a medianage of 62 (23-87) years old, 54% of the patients were female, and46% were male.RESULTS:Normal CT findings were foundin 44 patients (61.1%), 28 patients (38.9%) had pathological findings, out of that number 23 (31.9%) findings were clinically irrelevant and 5 (6.9%) were clinically significant. Out of the 5clinically significant findings, tumourprocess was foundin 3 (4.2%) patients, haemorrhagewas foundin 1 (1.4%) patient, andthe ischemiclesion wasfoundin 1 (1.4%) patient. Additional evaluation of five clinically significant findings showed a changeof initial diagnosis in one case, but the significanceofthe finding remained the same.CONCLUSION:Our study demonstrates a low diagnostic yield of head CT examination with 6.9% of clinically significant findings in patients with vertigo without focal neurological abnormalitie

Vertigo ; Emergency department ; Computed tomography (CT)

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