Value of Los Angeles Motor Scale (LAMS) in the detection of large vessels occlusion in suspected stroke patients; a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Introduction Los Angeles Motor Scale (LAMS) is a validated prehospital scoring tool to identify stroke patients with large vessel occlusions (LVOs). While some studies have reported conflicting data in regards to the diagnostic value of LAMS, this systematic review and meta-analysis aims to provide a more concrete evidence for the value of this clinical decision tool in the diagnosis of LVO in suspected stroke patients. Method Online databases of PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched until the end of October 2022, for studies evaluating the diagnostic performance of LAMS in the detection of LVOs in suspected stroke patients. Results The results of our analysis demonstrated an AUC of 0.83 (95% CI: 0.79, 0.86), sensitivity of 0.65 (95% CI: 0.54, 0.74), and specificity of 0.83 (95% CI: 0.79, 0.86) for the diagnostic value of LAMS score with a cut-off value of ≥ 4. The diagnostic odds ratio of LAMS score was 8.81 (95% CI: 6.24, 12.45). Sensitivity analyses reveled that diagnostic performance of LAMS improves when utilized for detection of occlusion in the more proximal segments of large vessels, with a sensitivity of 0.75 and specificity of 0.83. Conclusion A high level of evidence showed that LAMS scale does not have a promising diagnostic value in the identification of LVOs in suspected stroke patients. The sensitivity of 0.65 for this tool makes it obsolete as a proper triaging tool. As a suggestion, LAMS could be utilized in conjunction with other additional factors to increase its diagnostic performance.

Keywords

• Stroke
• Large vessel occlusion
• clinical decision tool
• Los Angeles Motor Scale