RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Dyspnea is a common Emergency Department (ED) complaint of which acute pulmonary edema (APE) is a potentially life-threatening etiology. Remote Dielectric Sensing (ReDS™) is a novel, non-invasive, radar based, rapid, point of care vest testing system used to objectively quantify lung fluid content and may be useful in the early diagnosis of APE. OBJECTIVE: To determine the accuracy of ReDS to detect pathologic lung fluid in ED undifferentiated dyspneic patients. METHODS: We performed a prospective convenience sample observation pilot study enrolling adult ED patients with a chief complaint of "shortness of breath." After informed consent, patients were fitted with the ReDS vest and a reading, blinded to the care team, was recorded. A gold standard diagnosis of pulmonary edema, determined by 2 physicians performing a chart review and blinded to ReDs data, was compared to the ReDS reading. RESULTS: Overall, 123 patients were included; 59% (n = 73) were male, mean (SD) age 57.2 (±12) years, 46.3% (n = 57) Hispanic, 34.1%(n = 42) African American, 13.0% (n = 16) Caucasian and 5.7% (n = 7) Asian. The gold standard diagnosis showed pulmonary edema in 38 (30.9%) patients, of which 30 were detected by ReDS. At an optimal cutoff (≥ 37%), ReDS had a Sn of 79.5% (CI 63.5% - 90.5%), Sp of 72.6% (CI 61.8% - 81.8%), a PPV of 57.4% and a NPV of 88.4%. CONCLUSIONS: ReDS is moderately sensitive and specific with an accuracy of 74.8% for pulmonary edema.