Keywords:
Abdomen, Emergency, Ultrasound, Diagnostic procedure, Acute
Authors:
L. Barnsley, L. McLeod, A. Dawood, S. Kashmoola, J. McGill, N. Kutaiba
DOI:
10.26044/ranzcr2022/R-0030
Results
261 patients underwent ultrasound for suspected appendicitis and were included in our audit. The median age for our cohort was 24 years (interquartile range, 18 to 32) with 83.9% female and 16.1% male patients. Of 261 patients, the appendix was identified in 47 patients of which 40 were classified as positive for appendicitis. 221 patients were classified as negative. 56 patients underwent appendicectomy, 43 of which had histopathology confirming appendicitis. The prevalence of appendicitis in our cohort was 16%. Approximately 65% (28/43) of true positive cases were identified by ultrasound prior to surgery. Therefore, the overall sensitivity of ultrasound on detecting appendicitis was 65.1% and the specificity was 94.5%. The positive predictive value was 70.0% and the negative predictive value was 93.2%.