2011 appropriate use criteria audit of an echocardiography lab in South Western Nigeria

Cardiovascular diseases are the major cause of death worldwide. Since its discovery in the 20th century, Echocardiography (ECHO) has become one of the pivotal tools in assessing cardiac structure and function. With the increase in requests for ECHO, there has risen an unwanted problem - inappropriate requests for ECHO. There has therefore arisen the need to audit ECHO labs for the appropriateness of ECHO requests. The patients referred from the outpatient clinics and in-patient wards for ECHO from June 1st, 2015 till September 30th, 2016 were recruited. Their request form data, clinical information, and ECHO results were analyzed as appropriate. The 2011 appropriate use criteria for Transthoracic ECHO was utilized. The most common indication out of the 2174 ECHOs reviewed was hypertension (16%), closely followed by hypertensive heart disease (12.4%). The percentage of appropriate, inappropriate, and uncertain indications according to the 2011 appropriate use criteria (AUC) for transthoracic echocardiography were 41.4%, 31.1%, and 0.1% respectively. Less than ten percent (9.3%) of the indications could not be classified by the 2011 AUC while 18.1% of the ECHOs had no indication. When indications of Hypertension, Hypertensive Heart Disease (HHD) and heart failure were compared, heart failure was significantly associated with eccentric Left Ventricular Hypertrophy (LVH), larger LV mass, lower BMI, larger cardiac dimensions, reduced ejection fraction, lower trans mitral A velocities than the other two indications. Concentric LVH was showed a trend towards being most in those with HHD (p= 0.072). The percentage of appropriate indications was low in this study as compared to others, largely because of large inappropriate indications. There is a need to ensure appropriate indications are filled for ECHO request forms. The 2011 AUC may need to be reviewed to expand the appropriate group of indications.