Detection of paediatric skull fractures using POCUS.

Abstract

A shortcut review of the literature was conducted to examine the sensitivity and specificity of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in detecting paediatric skull fractures. A total of 162 publications were screened by title and abstract, 13 studies underwent full text review, and after review of bibliographies of meta-analyses and systematic reviews, a total of 6 articles were included. Details about the author, date of publication, country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes (skull fracture), results and study limitations were tabulated. The clinical bottom line is that, in paediatric patients with a minor head injury, POCUS performed by emergency medicine physicians has a sensitivity ranging between 77% and 100% and a specificity between 85% and 100% for skull fracture detection, and its use in clinical decision-making has yet to be validated.