[Interest of performing systematically the protein profile in an internal medicine department. National survey and prospective study on 229 admissions].
BACKGROUND
Despite a wide national use, the usefulness of the protein profile has only been evaluated in a small number of studies, essentially in patients with unknown diagnoses.


METHODS
We conducted a survey on 339 french internal medicine departments to evaluate how the protein profile was used in these services. Concomitantly we achieved a prospective study on 229 patients in our department, with a mean follow up of 9 months, to evaluate how did the protein profile influence the diagnosis process.


RESULTS
We received 183 responses to our national survey: the protein profile was available in 110/183 (60%) departments with 94/110 (85%) using it during hospitalisation and 20/94 (21.3%) using it systematically. Among the 229 protein profile analysed in our department, 44 (19.2%) were considered useful with 20 (8.7%) of them allowing the diagnosis of a new pathology. If the profile had not been done systematically, the physicians of our department would have performed the profile in 102/229 (44.5%) cases, whereas seven (3%) useful profiles would not have been done.


CONCLUSIONS
We think that the profile has a consistent interest in hospitalized patients with a known or unknown pathology but performing systematically such a test appears to be of limited benefit.
Turner
L
L
Service de médecine interne, CHG Dourdan, 2, rue du Potelet, 91410 Dourdan cedex, France. turner@ch.dourdan.fr
Le Moal
B
B
El Gharbi
T
T
Dresco
E
E
Pollet
J
J
Limal
N
N
Cacoub
P
P
D001798:Blood Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D003955:Diagnostic Tests, Routine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006748:Hospital Departments; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D001798:Blood Proteins