External Validity of Electronic Sniffers for Automated Recognition of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.

INTRODUCTION: Automated electronic sniffers may be useful for early detection of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) for institution of treatment or clinical trial screening.

METHODS: In a prospective cohort of 2929 critically ill patients, we retrospectively applied published sniffer algorithms for automated detection of acute lung injury to assess their utility in diagnosis of ARDS in the first 4 ICU days. Radiographic full-text reports were searched for "edema" OR ("bilateral" AND "infiltrate") and a more detailed algorithm for descriptions consistent with ARDS. Patients were flagged as possible ARDS if a radiograph met search criteria and had a PaO2 /FiO2 or SpO2 /FiO2 of 300 or 315, respectively. Test characteristics of the electronic sniffers and clinical suspicion of ARDS were compared to a gold standard of 2-physician adjudicated ARDS.

RESULTS: Thirty percent of 2841 patients included in the analysis had gold standard diagnosis of ARDS. The simpler algorithm had sensitivity for ARDS of 78.9%, specificity of 52%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 41%, and negative predictive value (NPV) of 85.3% over the 4-day study period. The more detailed algorithm had sensitivity of 88.2%, specificity of 55.4%, PPV of 45.6%, and NPV of 91.7%. Both algorithms were more sensitive but less specific than clinician suspicion, which had sensitivity of 40.7%, specificity of 94.8%, PPV of 78.2%, and NPV of 77.7%.

CONCLUSIONS: Published electronic sniffer algorithms for ARDS may be useful automated screening tools for ARDS and improve on clinical recognition, but they are limited to screening rather than diagnosis because their specificity is poor.