Abstract
Back pain is very common. Rarely, it may be the first manifestation of cancer. Although many advocate selective use of laboratory and x-ray tests for back pain patients, the early detection of cancer may be an important reason to obtain such tests. To develop a diagnostic approach that would identify malignancies while remaining parsimonious, the authors evaluated 1,975 walk-in patients with α chief complaint of back pain. Thirteen patients (0.66%) proved to have underlying cancer. Findings significantly associated with underlying cancer (p<0.05) were: age ≥50 years, previous history of cancer, duration of pain>1 month, failure to improve with conservative therapy, elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and anemia. Combining historical features and ESR results led to an algorithm that would have limited x-ray utilization to just 22% of subjects while recommending an x-ray for every cancer patient. It would further suggest which patients with negative x-ray findings require further work-up.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 230-238 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of general internal medicine |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 1988 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- back pain
- cancer
- clinical strategies
- x-ray utilization
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Internal Medicine