Abstract

In a young male patient of typical right lower quadrant pain and tenderness with signs of inflammation, a CT scan is unnecessary, wastes valuable time, may be misinterpreted, and exposes the patient to risks for allergic contrast reaction, nephropathy and ionizing radiation. The ionizing radiation carries increased risk in children with the rate of radiation-induced cancer estimated at 0.18% following an abdominal CT scan. In this study, over a period of one year,100 patients presenting with pain in the right lower quadrant of abdomen, who after clinical examination were provisionally diagnosed to have acute appendicitis and warranting surgery for the same were evaluated using the scoring system –Appendicitis Inflammatory Response Score. The study was conducted on the patients presenting with clinical features suggestive of acute appendicitis admitted in surgical wards. AIR diagnosed 84 patients as acute appendicitis (at score >4) of which 4 were false positive cases. It ruled out acute appendicitis (at score <4) in 16 individuals of which 9 were false negative ones. AIR could diagnose 11 cases of acute appendicitis (at score >8) with no false positive cases.

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