The Resus Room11 Okt 2016

One for the geeks; interval likelihood ratios

Risk assessment, testing and risk management form the very heart of Emergency Medicine and Critical Care.

Being aware of the evidence surrounding a topic is key to delivering high level care but without an understanding of the underpinning concepts it's application is extremely limited.

Understanding how a test result changes a patient's likelihood of a disease can be described with likelihood ratios, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has a podcast explaining likelihood ratios in more detail.

But when a test result comes back on the boundary between positive and negative, or at the extremes of positive we can find it difficult to know what this means and that's where interval likelihood ratios comes into play.

Examples include a minimally elevated WCC in a suspected appendicitis, or a dramatically raised d-dimer as compared to a borderline positive result in a suspected pulmonary embolus, this podcast talks through some of those concepts and their application, enjoy!

References

Evidence-based emergency medicine/skills for evidence-based emergency care. Interval likelihood ratios: another advantage for the evidence-based diagnostician. Brown MD. Ann Emerg Med. 2003

Pulmonary embolism: making sense of the diagnostic evaluation. Wolfe TR. Ann Emerg Med. 2001

Diagnostic accuracy of conventional or age adjusted D-dimer cut-off values in older patients with suspected venous thromboembolism: systematic review and meta-analysis. Schouten HJ. BMJ. 2013

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(288)

Pupillary Reflex; Roadside to Resus

We assess the pupils in almost every significantly unwell or injured patient - but how much are they really telling us? It is easy to document 'pupils equal and reactive' and move on, yet a changing p...

15 Sep 55min

September 2026; papers of the month

Welcome back to September 2026's Papers of the Month, and this month we've got three papers that are really focused on the practical end of emergency and prehospital care. First up, we're looking at w...

1 Sep 36min

August 2026; papers of the month

This month we've got another really varied mix of papers that all have the potential to influence everyday emergency and prehospital practice. We start by asking a question that's becoming increasingl...

2 Aug 35min

Laryngectomy and Tracheostomy Emergencies; Roadside to Resus

Tracheostomy and laryngectomy emergencies are classic high-acuity, low-frequency situations. They do not happen every day, but when they do, airway problems can develop quickly, and the wrong interven...

16 Jul 50min

July 2026; papers of the month

Welcome back to July's Papers of the Month. This month we've got three papers that tackle some of the biggest questions we face in emergency and critical care medicine. They're all very different stud...

1 Jul 31min

Excellence in Facemask Ventilation; Roadside to Resus

Face mask ventilation is one of those skills that can easily be overlooked. It's often seen as the simple bit of airway management — something that sits below the glamour of videolaryngoscopy, fibre-o...

16 Jun 59min

June 2026; papers of the month

This month's episode takes us deep into trauma care, but not just the medicine we deliver but also the systems, circumstances and social factors that shape who survives and who doesn't. We start by lo...

1 Jun 32min

Reframing Anaphylaxis; Roadside to Resus

Anaphylaxis is one of those conditions we think we have got pretty well sorted. Recognise it early, give adrenaline, support the airway and circulation, and crack on. And in fairness, for the vast maj...

14 Mai 44min