The Diagnosis and Management of Patients with Renal Colic across a Sample of US Hospitals: High CT Utilization Despite Low Rates of Admission and Inpatient Urologic Intervention.

In this dataset, the majority of patients did not require admission or immediate intervention. Despite this, the large majority received CT scans, in a cohort representing 15-20% of all US ED visits. The CT rate was minimally variable at the hospital level, but the admission rates varied 2-fold, suggesting that hospital-level factors affect patient management. The high rate of CT usage coupled with the low rate of immediate intervention suggests that further research is warranted to identify patients who are at low risk for an immediate intervention, and could potentially be managed with ultrasound alone, expectant management, or delayed CT.