In a recent prospective clinical study, researchers evaluated the use of a color grading scale in the visual assessment of peritoneal fluid, before and after centrifugation, and assessed its ability to predict the presence of a strangulating lesion.
They visually analyzed peritoneal fluid samples from 231 equids presenting with colic immediately after collection and assigned a numerical value based on a developed color scale. Peritoneal fluid was centrifuged (4440 x g for 3 min), and the visual assessment repeated. They recorded clinicopathological data, lesion location/type, need for surgery, and outcome, and they used logistic regression to outline associations between variables and the presence of a strangulating lesion. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was constructed to identify cut-off values that correctly classified the highest percentage of strangulating and non-strangulating lesions.
Of the 231 equids included in the study, 58 (25.1%) were diagnosed with a strangulating lesion. Using ROC analysis, the area under the curve (AUC) of the peritoneal fluid color scale (i.e., 1-10), color grade (i.e., yellow, orange, or red), and transparency before centrifugation for the detection of strangulating lesion was 0.85, 0.82, and 0.74. After centrifugation, the AUC of the peritoneal fluid color scale, color grade, and transparency for the detection of strangulating lesion was 0.87, 0.84, and 0.55 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.81-0.93, 0.78-0.89, and 0.5-0.6), respectively.
Bottom Line
In the current study, gross fluid color assessment provided reasonable sensitivity and good specificity for detection of a strangulating lesion. Notably, following centrifugation, the sensitivity and specificity for peritoneal fluid color and grade improved, but evaluating the transparency has a higher diagnostic utility prior to centrifuge.
https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/evj.70325
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