A diagnostic score for reliable confirmation of acute renal colic among patients with acute abdominal pain

Abstract

Background/Aim: Diagnostic scores (DSs) for confirmation of acute renal colic (ARCO) have rarely been evaluated. Patients and Methods: A cohort of 1,333 patients with acute abdominal pain (AAP) were studied, including 59 patients with confirmed ARCO. The most significant diagnostic findings (in multivariate logistic regression analysis) were used to construct DS formulas for the diagnosis of ARCO. Meta-analytical techniques were used to detect the summary sensitivity and specificity estimates for each data set (clinical symptoms, signs and tests, as well as DS formulas). Results: In hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic analysis (HSROC), the values for area under the curve (95% confidence interval) for i) clinical symptoms ii) signs and tests, and iii) DS were 0.650 (0.612-0.688), 0.724 (0.680-0.768) and 0.962 (0.940-0.984), respectively. In HSROC analysis of the area under the curve values, differences were significant between i) and iii) (p<0.0001) and between ii) and iii) (p<0.0001). Conclusion: The present study is the first to provide evidence suggesting that the DS can be used for clinical confirmation of ARCO in patients with AAP, with a high diagnostic accuracy without radiological or laboratory analyses.