Diagnostic accuracy in acute appendicitis: comparison between clinical impression and ultrasound findings

ABSTRACT

A cross-sectional study to determine the diagnostic accuracy of clinical impression and graded compression abdominal ultrasonography in acute appendicitis used individually or complementary to each other was conducted in a busy surgical unit. Eighty nine cases subjected to categorized clinical impression and ultrasonography preoperatively achieved fairly high sensitivity [84.3% and 81.81% respectively] but low specificity [23.68% and 38.23%] with an overall negative predictive value of 31%, implying it to be a poor indicator to avoid negative appendicectomies