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The Accuracy of the Physical Examination in the Diagnosis of Suspected Ascites
Abstract
Twenty-one patients referred for evaluation with a diagnosis of questionable ascites were examined independently by three investigators who performed five different physical examination maneuvers. With ultrasonography as the reference standard, six patients had ascites. The sensitivity and specificity of the physical examination maneuvers ranged from 50% to 94% and 29% to 82%, respectively. The overall accuracy of the maneuvers was only 58%. The results of this study indicate that routine physical examination has definite limitations in the precise diagnosis of equivocal ascites. The only conclusion that can be made by a physical maneuver with over 90% accuracy is that ascites is absent if no flank dullness is elicited. Ultrasonography is recommended in questionable cases.
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Citations
Cited by
Schuppan, D., & Afdhal, N. H. (2008) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(08)60383-9 · Cited by 2,089
Guidelines on the management of ascites in cirrhosis
Aithal, G. P., Palaniyappan, N., China, L., Härmälä, S., Macken, L., Ryan, J. M., Wilkes, E. A., Moore, K., Leithead, J. A., Hayes, P. C., et al. (2021) · Gut · doi:10.1136/gutjnl-2020-321790 · Cited by 680
Management of adult patients with ascites caused by cirrhosis†
Runyon, B. A. (1998) · Hepatology · doi:10.1002/hep.510270139 · Cited by 498
Northup, P. G., Wanamaker, R. C., Lee, V. D., Adams, R. B., & Berg, C. L. (2005) · Annals of Surgery · doi:10.1097/01.sla.0000171327.29262.e0 · Cited by 337
Why clinicians are natural bayesians
Gill, C. J., Sabin, L., & Schmid, C. H. (2005) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7499.1080 · Cited by 268
Metadata
- Authors
- Cattau, E. L.
- Venue
- JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association
- Publisher
- American Medical Association (AMA)
- Published
- 1982-02-26
- Volume
- 247
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1164
- ISSN
- 0002-9955 (ISSN-L)
- 0098-7484
- OpenAlex
- W1994668645
- Cited by
- 196
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 5.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Cattau, E. L. (1982). The Accuracy of the Physical Examination in the Diagnosis of Suspected Ascites. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1982.03320330060027
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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