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What Proportion of Emergency Department Headache Patients With Normal Neurology Have a Serious Secondary Headache
Anne Maree Kelly1,2, Kevin H Chu3,4, Win Sen Kuan5,6
1Joseph Epstein Centre for Emergency Medicine Research@Western Health, Sunshine, Victoria, Australia.
Objectives:
To estimate the proportion of Emergency Department (ED) headache patients without neurological features who are diagnosed with a serious secondary headache cause.
Methods:
Unplanned secondary analysis of HEAD Study/HEAD Colombia data. Patients without a known history of cerebral conditions and with a normal neurological assessment were included. The outcome of interest was the proportion of patients diagnosed with a serious secondary headache cause.
Results:
One hundred ninety-one patients were diagnosed with a serious secondary headache cause (191/3951, 4.8%, 95% CI 4.2%-5.5%).
Conclusion:
Absence of neurological features alone cannot be used to reliably exclude a serious secondary headache cause in ED patients.
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