ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of Pediatric Appendicitis Score (PAS) in predicting appendicitis in children presenting with acute abdominal pain to the Emergency Department (ED) of a private hospital in Pakistan. Methods: This validation study was through retrospective chart review of children between 4-18 years of age with clinical suspicion of acute appendicitis, presenting to the pediatric ED. Diagnostic accuracy was determined using sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and area under the curve (AUC). Results: 104 children (76% boys) with mean (SD) age of 10.9 (3.5) years met the eligibility criteria. 91% (n=95) patients had moderate to high PAS (score ?4), and 95% (n=99) had biopsy-proven appendicitis. The likelihood ratio calculated for low, equivocal and high-risk PAS was 0.10, 2.17 and 2.53, respectively. An equivocal PAS (score 4-6) showed a sensitivity of 96.8%, specificity of 80%, positive predictive value of 98.9% and AUC of 0.84 for predicting acute appendicitis. Conclusion: PAS showed good diagnostic accuracy in predicting acute appendicitis in children presenting to the ED.
ABSTRACT
The factors of integral importance to run any pediatric emergency department efficiently are the ability to process a high volume of patients quickly and a sensitive triage system that identifies the sickest children. Achieving these aims in a low- to middle-income country setting is more complex as a result of scarce resources and data on which to base systems. In this article, we discuss existing models of streamlining pediatric emergency department services that are most applicable to resource-limited countries, and present suggestions for streamlining pediatric emergency care in such countries.