Resultados tras el seguimiento a largo plazo de los pacientes evaluados en una unidad de síncope

Background and objective

Syncope is a frequent reason for consulting the hospital emergency department. Finding the ethiology can be a challenge due to its presentation and the multiple causes that originate it; hence the need to create so-called “syncope units”. Our objective was to analyze the diagnostic reliability of these units.

Materials and methods

Prospective observational analysis of 465 patients evaluated in our syncope unit, where modifications of the initial etiological diagnosis during long-term follow-up are evaluated.

Results

After follow-up, the initial diagnosis was modified in a small percentage of cases (6.7%). The overall mortality was 5.6%, of which only 0.9% was of cardiovascular origin. Among the patients with syncope cataloged as cardiogenic after the follow-up, there were no deaths of cardiovascular origin.

Conclusions

There is a small percentage of change in the initial diagnosis of syncope after follow-up in the syncope unit. Our study suggests that the syncope units are reliable structures when it comes to finding the etiological diagnosis of it. Given the variability in the attendance of this syndrome between centers, more studies would be necessary to evaluate which organizational model presents the best results.