The Evaluation of Occult Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: Why Are We Still Doing LPs? Is CTA A Better Alternative?
It’s 4pm on a Wednesday. As per usual, the chart rack is full, and you’re trying to stay positive and keep up morale of the entire team. You pick up your next chart, and as you read the chief complaint, your heart sinks into your belly. The complaint is, “severe headache,” and you’re already trying to figure out how you’re going to fit an LP into your busy patient load.
Headaches are experienced in all types of ways by our patients. Many are benign – but we are in the catastrophe business. How do we know if the headache is actually a brain mass? Or what if it’s a raging intracranial hemorrhage? And if it is a brain bleed, what kind will it be? If we have a suspicion of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), did our mouse click for “head CT (non-contrast)” just commit us and our patient to a lumbar puncture? […]