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Journal of The Korean Society of Emergency Medicine 2009;20(3): 304-309. |
| Comparison of Ultrasound-assisted Lumbar Puncture with Lumbar Puncture using Palpation of Landmarks in Aged Patients in an Emergency Center |
| Yong Chul Cho, Do Hyun Koo, Se Kwang Oh, Won Joon Jeong, Won Suk Lee, Yeon Ho You, Seung Ryu, Jin Woong Lee, Seung Whan Kim, In Sool Yoo |
1Department of Emergency Medicine, Chungnam National University Hospital, Daejeon, Korea. emd@hanmail.net
2Department of Emergency Medicine, Konyang Unversity Hospital, Daejeon, Korea.
3Department of Emergency Medicine, Dong-A University Medical Center, Pusan, Korea. |
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| ABSTRACT |
PURPOSE:
We evaluated the utility of ultrasound-assisted lumbar puncture (UALP) in aged patients who visited our emergency center.
METHODS:
This was a prospective, randomized, controlled study. From July to December 2007 we enrolled patients who were at least 60 years of age . Patients were divided into a group that had lumbar puncture (LP) using landmark palpation (group A) and a UALP group (group B). We did between-group comparisons for the number of attempts, procedure time, the number of LP failures, and whether traumatic LP was done.
For all hypotheses, a significance level of 0.05 was used.
Variables are reported as percentages and mean +/-standard deviation.
RESULTS:
We enrolled sixty aged patients: 30 in group A and 30 in group B. There were 5 cases of LP failure in group A and none in group B (p<0.05). There were 6 cases of traumatic lumbar puncture in group A, and one case in group B (p=0.05). The number of attempts was 3.3+/-2.4 in group A and 1.5+/-0.8 in group B (p<0.05). It took 10.6+/-7.7 minutes to finish each LP in group A compared to 5.3+/-4.2 minutes in group B (p<0.05).
CONCLUSION:
The use of ultrasound-assisted lumbar puncture significantly reduces the number of failures, the number of attempts, and the procedure time in aged patients. |
| Key words:
Ultrasonography, Spinal puncture, Aged |
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