ArticleJournal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open2022
External validation of a pediatric decision rule for blunt abdominal trauma.
Article in Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Validation of PECARN as a clinical decision rule for CT imaging of children with blunt abdominal trauma: a single centre retrospective cohort study.Pediatric surgery international · 2026Article
- Emergency Department Observation and Computed Tomography Use in Children With Blunt Abdominal Trauma.Annals of emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Polytrauma in Children—Epidemiology, Acute Diagnostic Evaluation, and Treatment.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2024Review
- Validation of Prediction Rules for Computed Tomography Use in Children With Blunt Abdominal or Blunt Head Trauma: Protocol for a Prospective Multicenter Observational Cohort Study.JMIR research protocols · 2022Article
- External validation of a pediatric decision rule for blunt abdominal trauma.Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionBlunt traumatic injuries are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the pediatric population. Contrast-enhanced multidetector computed tomography is the best imaging tool for screening patients at risk of blunt abdominal injury. The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) abdominal rule was derived to identify patients at low risk for significant abdominal injury who do not require imaging.
methodsWe conducted a retrospective review of pediatric patients with blunt trauma to validate the PECARN rule in a non-pediatric specialized hospital from February 3, 2013, through December 31, 2019. We excluded those with penetrating or mild isolated head injury. The PECARN decision rule was retrospectively applied for the presence of a therapeutic intervention, defined as a laparotomy, angiographic embolization, blood transfusion, or administration of intravenous fluids for pancreatic or gastrointestinal injury. Sensitivity and specificity analysis were conducted along with the negative and positive predictive values.
resultsA total of 794 patients were included in the final analysis; 23 patients met the primary outcome for an acute intervention. The PECARN clinical decision rule (CDR) had a sensitivity of 91.3%, a negative predictive value of 99.5, and a negative likelihood ration of 0.16.
conclusionIn a non-pediatric specialty hospital, the PECARN blunt abdominal CDR performed with comparable sensitivity and negative predictive value to the derivation and external validation study performed at specialized children's hospitals.
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