J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  2012 Feb;23(1):85-90.

Clinical Predictors of Cervical Abscess in Adult Emergency Department Patients Presenting a Sore Throat

• Yun SY
• Cho YC
• Ryu S
• Lee JW
• Kim SW
• Yoo IS
• You YH
• Min JH
• Jeong WJ

Abstract

PURPOSE
To evaluate clinical predictors of cervical abscess in adult patients who present a sore throat.
METHODS
We prospectively studied adult patients (18 years of age or older) who presented with a sore throat at one of three hospitals (Chungnam national university hospital, Chungbuk national university hospital, and Konyang university hospital) from June 2010 to June 2011. The enrolled patients received a neck computed tomography scan, and their clinical manifestations were investigated. We evaluated several clinical variables in order to predict the existence of cervical abscess by use of multiple logistic regression analysis, and assessed the ability of the results of these variables to accurately diagnose cervical abscess using a receiver operating characteristic curve.
RESULTS
A total of 109 patients were enrolled in this study. We identified two clinical variables (swelling and voice change) useful in predicting the existence of cervical abscess, and the AUC acquired by adding the scores of the two clinical factors was 0.89 (p<0.01). The sensitivity and specificity of these clinical factors to predict cervical abscess were 0.96 and 0.69 when the cut off value was determined to be 2.
CONCLUSION
Two clinical factors (swelling and voice change) were useful in predicting the appearance of cervical abscesses. Consideration should be made for the need for incision and drainage of a cervical abscess if a patient presents swelling, or swelling and voice change.

Keyword

Neck; Abscess; Infection

MeSH Terms

Abscess
Adult
Area Under Curve
Drainage
Emergencies
Humans
Logistic Models
Neck
Pharyngitis
Prospective Studies
ROC Curve
Sensitivity and Specificity
Voice