San Francisco Syncope Rule
Identify those at low risk of adverse outcome after a syncopal episode
The San Francisco Syncope rule identifies patients who cannot be considered low risk of adverse outcomes after a syncopal event.
Criteria include:
- History of congestive heart failure
- Hematocrit <30%
- Abnormal EKG (New ECG change from any source, any non-sinus rhythm on EKG or monitoring)
- Symptoms of shortness of breath
- Systolic BP <90 mmHg at triage
If any of these criteria are noted, patient cannot be considered "low risk" of a serious outcome. In this study, a serious outcome is defined as "death, myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, pulmonary embolism, stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, significant hemorrhage, or any condition causing a return ED visit and hospitalization for a related event."
While the original paper identified a 96% sensitivity and 62% specificity for serious outcome (with negative predictive value 99.2% and positive predictive value 24.8%), validation studies have reported inconsistent results.
- [1]Quinn J, McDermott D, Stiell I, Kohn M, Wells G.: Prospective validation of the San Francisco Syncope Rule to predict patients with serious outcomes.Annals of Emergency Medicine 2006, 47 (5): 448-54
- [2]Birnbaum A, Esses D, Bijur P, Wollowitz A, Gallagher EJ.: Failure to validate the San Francisco Syncope Rule in an independent emergency department population.Annals of Emergency Medicine 2008, 52 (2): 151-9
Results
Real-time automated computation
The San Francisco Syncope rule identifies patients who cannot be considered low risk of adverse outcomes after a syncopal event.
Criteria include:
- History of congestive heart failure
- Hematocrit <30%
- Abnormal EKG (New ECG change from any source, any non-sinus rhythm on EKG or monitoring)
- Symptoms of shortness of breath
- Systolic BP <90 mmHg at triage
If any of these criteria are noted, patient cannot be considered "low risk" of a serious outcome. In this study, a serious outcome is defined as "death, myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, pulmonary embolism, stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, significant hemorrhage, or any condition causing a return ED visit and hospitalization for a related event."
While the original paper identified a 96% sensitivity and 62% specificity for serious outcome (with negative predictive value 99.2% and positive predictive value 24.8%), validation studies have reported inconsistent results.
- [1]Quinn J, McDermott D, Stiell I, Kohn M, Wells G.: Prospective validation of the San Francisco Syncope Rule to predict patients with serious outcomes.Annals of Emergency Medicine 2006, 47 (5): 448-54
- [2]Birnbaum A, Esses D, Bijur P, Wollowitz A, Gallagher EJ.: Failure to validate the San Francisco Syncope Rule in an independent emergency department population.Annals of Emergency Medicine 2008, 52 (2): 151-9