The DOI matches its Crossref record; the references it cites are not checked yet.
Yield of Diagnostic Tests and Its Impact on Cost in Adult Patients with Syncope Presenting to a Community Hospital
Abstract
Objectives Total annual costs for syncope-related hospitalizations were $2.4 billion in 2000. The aim of this study was to examine the type and number of tests ordered for patients admitted with syncope and whether these tests helped establish the cause. Methods We studied the records of 1038 patients coded as "syncope" in billing records, and 167 fulfilled the eligibility criteria. The main outcome measures were the diagnostic yield of the ordered tests, the incremental cost/incremental benefit, and the number of admissions that can be averted if risk stratification were used in the evaluation. Results The etiology of the syncope was identified in 48.3% of the patients. Postural blood pressure measurement has the highest diagnostic yield at 58.7%, whereas history taking diagnosed 19.7% of cases. The diagnostic yields of telemetry, electrocardiogram, radionuclide stress test, echocardiography, and troponin measurement were 4.76%, 4.24%, 3.44%, 0.94%, and 0.62%, respectively. Chest x-ray, carotid ultrasonography, 24-hour Holter monitoring, brain computed tomography, and brain magnetic resonance imaging did not yield the diagnosis in any of the patients. Only 1.9% of the money spent in the evaluation of syncope was effective in leading to a definitive diagnosis. The orthostatic blood pressure measurement was ranked first in the incremental cost/incremental benefit ratio and the radionuclide stress test was ranked last (17.03 vs 42,369.0, respectively). Approximately 6% of the p…
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“The evidence suggests that routine neurological testing is of very limited value in the context of syncope evaluation and management; the diagnostic yield is low, with very high cost per diagnosis (36,77,78,251–260).”
From 2017 ACC/AHA/HRS Guideline for the Evaluation and Management of Patients With Syncope (2017) · cites this paper as [78]
In the citing paper
“A systematic review found that EEG, CT, MRI, and carotid ultrasound were ordered in 11% to 58% of patients with a presentation of syncope (78).”
From 2017 ACC/AHA/HRS Guideline for the Evaluation and Management of Patients With Syncope (2017) · cites this paper as [78]
Citations
The citation lists are queued
They are fetched later and appear here then.
References 1 · Cited by 36
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Kapoor, N Engl J Med, 343, 1856, 10.1056/NEJM200012213432507 · DOI
Metadata
- Authors
- Johnson, P. C., Ammar, H., Zohdy, W., Fouda, R., & Govindu, R.
- Affiliations
- Cairo University (EG)
- Venue
- Southern Medical Journal
- Publisher
- Southern Medical Association
- Published
- 2014-11
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 707-714
- ISSN
- 0038-4348 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2415682417
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 1 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 3.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Southern Medical Journal (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Cardiovascular Syncope and Autonomic Disorders
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare cost, quality, practices
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Family Practice › Clinical Reasoning and Diagnostic Skills
- Keywords
- syncope, diagnostic yield, diagnostic testing costs, cost-effectiveness, unnecessary testing, risk stratification, hospitalization, adult patients
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Community, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Retrospective Studies, Syncope, Cost of Illness, Risk Assessment, Unnecessary Procedures
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Yield of Diagnostic Tests and Its Impact on Cost in Adult Patients with Syncope Presenting to a Community Hospital. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.14423/smj.0000000000000184
- The paper
- Johnson, P. C., Ammar, H., Zohdy, W., Fouda, R., & Govindu, R. (2014). Yield of Diagnostic Tests and Its Impact on Cost in Adult Patients with Syncope Presenting to a Community Hospital. Southern Medical Journal. https://doi.org/10.14423/smj.0000000000000184
