Accuracy of ultrasound to detect thrombosis in pregnancy: A systematic review

Abstract

Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound to detect deep--vein thrombosis in pregnant patients. Method: We searched Pubmed, LILACS, Scopus, Google Scholar and System for Information on Grey Literature from inception to April 2016. The reference lists of the included studies were analyzed. Original articles from accuracy studies that analyzed ultrasonography to diagnose deep-vein thrombosis in pregnant women were included. Reference standard was the follow-up time. The QUADAS-2 score was used for quality assessment. Results: Titles and summaries from 2,129 articles were identified. Four studies that evaluated deep-vein thrombosis in pregnant women were included. In all, 486 participants were enrolled. High risk of bias was seen in three out of four studies included regarding flow and timing domain of QUADAS-2. Negative predictive value was 99.39%. Conclusion: Accuracy of ultrasonography to diagnose deep-vein thrombosis in pregnant women was not determined due to the absence of data yielding positive results. Further studies of low risk of bias are needed to determine the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasonography in this clinical scenario.