Is Kidney-Ureter-Bladder Radiography Still a Helpful Tool to Address Acute Ureteral Colic in Emergency Settings?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background This study aims to identify the reliability of kidney-ureter-bladder (KUB) radiography as a triage tool in acute ureteral colic (AUC). Moreover, this article correlates between KUB and non-contrast computerized tomography (NCCT) in view of stone characteristics and clinical outcomes. Methodology A retrospective cohort study recruited patients who had proven ureteric stones on NCCT. A blinded review of KUB and NCCT was performed to identify the following variables in both tests: site, ureteric stone maximum diameter, and stone density. Correlation between KUB radiography and NCCT has been performed. The intermethod reliability was used to measure the degree to which test scores are consistent when the methods or instruments employed vary. Results One hundred fifty-one patients were included, of whom 75 (50%) had negative KUB and positive NCCT results for ureteric stones based on the blinded review. Lower ureteral calculi were found to be the most common location in both KUB (n = 49, 65%) and NCCT images (n = 81, 54%). The median stone diameters of KUB and NCCT were 5 (3-8) mm and 6 (4-9) mm, respectively. Hounsfield unit densities of more than 630 were found in 86 (57%) patients, and radiopaque stones were found in 76 (50%) patients. There was moderate and significant concordance (Cohen’s kappa = 0.520) between NCCT and KUB regarding stone location (P < 0.01). There was a strong concordance (Cohen’s kappa = 0.804) between NCCT and KUB in detecting ureteric stone maximum diameter (P < 0.01). Stone density was weakly correlated between KUB and NCCT (Cohen’s kappa = 0.254) (P = 0.001). Thirty-four cases (45%) of negative KUB results required surgical intervention (SI). Sepsis (n = 5, 15%) and acute kidney injury (n = 23, 68%) were the main indications for SI in negative KUB and positive NCCT ureteric stones. Conclusions KUB radiography should not be used as a triage tool in AUC due to potentially harmful outcomes. However, KUB radiography can be reliably used during follow-up, as there is a strong correlation between KUB radiography and NCCT for KUB-detectable ureteric stones.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.042 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".