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PurposeAn altered general state of health is a common reason for admitting older adults to hospital, although there is no consensus on the criteria or the diagnostic approach. Our objective was to study whether thorax, abdomen and pelvis tomography is useful for the diagnosis and determination of a specific care pathway for hospitalized patients over 80 years old with an altered general state of health without an identified clinical explanation.MethodsThe study was a retrospective observational monocentric study at a French university hospital, which included all hospitalized patients who had had a computed tomography scan following an alteration in their general state of health without a clinical explanation between January 2019 and June 2020. The primary endpoint was the presence of a diagnosis on the tomography report.ResultsWe studied 48 patient files (aged 86.2 ± 3.4 years on average). Tomography provided a diagnosis in 60.4% of cases. Factors significantly related to usefulness of tomography were weight loss and duration of weight loss. Among the diagnosed patients, specific actions were taken for 86.2% of them.ConclusionOur study suggests that thoracic-abdominal-pelvic tomography is useful for examining an alteration in older patients’ general state of health without an identified clinical explanation, particularly for those presenting with unintentional weight loss. It is probably preferable to use the correct symptom description instead of alteration of general state.