Logo

Log In Sign Up |  An official publication of: American College of Emergency Physicians
Navigation
  • Home
  • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • Clinical
    • Airway Managment
    • Case Reports
    • Critical Care
    • Guidelines
    • Imaging & Ultrasound
    • Pain & Palliative Care
    • Pediatrics
    • Resuscitation
    • Trauma & Injury
  • Resource Centers
    • mTBI Resource Center
  • Career
    • Practice Management
      • Benchmarking
      • Reimbursement & Coding
      • Care Team
      • Legal
      • Operations
      • Quality & Safety
    • Awards
    • Certification
    • Compensation
    • Early Career
    • Education
    • Leadership
    • Profiles
    • Retirement
    • Work-Life Balance
  • Columns
    • ACEP4U
    • Airway
    • Benchmarking
    • Brief19
    • By the Numbers
    • Coding Wizard
    • EM Cases
    • End of the Rainbow
    • Equity Equation
    • FACEPs in the Crowd
    • Forensic Facts
    • From the College
    • Images in EM
    • Kids Korner
    • Medicolegal Mind
    • Opinion
      • Break Room
      • New Spin
      • Pro-Con
    • Pearls From EM Literature
    • Policy Rx
    • Practice Changers
    • Problem Solvers
    • Residency Spotlight
    • Resident Voice
    • Skeptics’ Guide to Emergency Medicine
    • Sound Advice
    • Special OPs
    • Toxicology Q&A
    • WorldTravelERs
  • Resources
    • ACEP.org
    • ACEP Knowledge Quiz
    • Issue Archives
    • CME Now
    • Annual Scientific Assembly
      • ACEP14
      • ACEP15
      • ACEP16
      • ACEP17
      • ACEP18
      • ACEP19
    • Annals of Emergency Medicine
    • JACEP Open
    • Emergency Medicine Foundation
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Medical Editor in Chief
    • Editorial Advisory Board
    • Awards
    • Authors
    • Article Submission
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Privacy Policy
    • Copyright Information

Appendicitis Calculator Quantifies Risk in Children with Acute Abdominal Pain

By Marilynn Larkin (Reuters Health) | on March 27, 2018 | 0 Comment
Latest News
  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Print-Friendly Version

“Caveats are that it requires lab testing, so children who do not have lab studies performed will not be included,” she noted. “It also needs sophisticated calculations, which may be a barrier, but can be easily programmed into an electronic system.”

You Might Also Like
  • Too Many CT Scans for Pediatric Nontraumatic Abdominal Pain
  • Too Many CT Scans for Pediatric Nontraumatic Abdominal Pain
  • Can Normal C-Reactive Protein Rule Out Acute Appendicitis in Pediatric Patients?

“At present, the guideline for evaluating a child with appendicitis is based on clinical judgment and experience,” she said. “This calculator provides an objective measurement of risk, and thus may be applied and/or integrated into clinical practice, with an understanding of its limitations.”

Dr. Ethan Wiener, associate chief in the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone Health in New York City, said, “Coming from authors who have done a great deal of the important appendicitis work in the last decade, this paper is an effort to develop a better clinical prediction rule for appendicitis.”

“The real question with this rule is applicability,” he told Reuters Health by email. “The lowest-risk groups identified, [with] <5 percent and 5 percent–15 percent risk, have somewhere between a 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 risk of appendicitis.”

Most clinicians would still want to pursue a diagnosis at those levels of risk, he said, given the “significant implications and potential for complications.”

Dr. Wiener added that in his experience, equivocal ultrasounds do not necessarily lead to more CT scans. “Having a patient in the ED undergoing a workup gives us an opportunity to re-examine him or her,” he said. Longer observation may occur in some cases, possibly leading to another ultrasound or surgery or, he acknowledged, a CT scan if indicated.

“It seems like we must continue to rely on the age-old and time-tested physical exam findings of right lower-quadrant pain and associated peritoneal findings to guide clinical impressions and subsequent determination of need for diagnostic work-up,” he concluded.

Dr. S. Daniel Ganjian of Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, added, “This study was performed only on patients presenting to a children’s hospital.”

“Validation studies need to be performed to see if this tool can be used on patients who present to the pediatrician’s office or general ED, as opposed to specifically a pediatrics ED,” he said by email.

Pages: 1 2 | Single Page

Topics: AppendicitisClinical Decision ToolsImaging and UltrasoundPediatrics

Related

  • Case Report: When Syncope Gets Hairy

    June 17, 2025 - 0 Comment
  • Influenza, Muscle Pain, and an Elevated Serum Creatine Kinase

    May 10, 2025 - 0 Comment
  • When Do Pediatric Ventriculoperitoneal Shunts Fail?

    November 7, 2024 - 0 Comment

Current Issue

ACEP Now: June 2025 (Digital)

Read More

No Responses to “Appendicitis Calculator Quantifies Risk in Children with Acute Abdominal Pain”

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*
*

Wiley
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Advertise
  • Cookie Preferences
Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies. ISSN 2333-2603