M. Al-Khusheh, S.J. Iqbal, A. Gupta, H. Asalieh, K. Khalifa, K. Habeeb
One of the most common indications for emergency ab dominal surgery is acute appendicitis. Morbidity and mortality from appendicitis is low wh en it is diagnosed in its early stages and treatmen t is initiated promptly. The aim of this study is to evaluate the value of plain abdominal X ray in managing acute appendicitis. 109 patients, underwen t emergency appendicectomy, were included in the study. 35 patients had plain abdominal X ray(AX R) on admission. All AXR were reported by a consultant radiologist. The post operative histolog y was also reviewed to confirm the correlation to the clinical diagnosis of acute appendicitis. The v ast majority (80%) of the x-rays requested were normal despite the fact that all the patients in th is audit went on to have appendicectomy and most of these (71%) had appendicitis confirmed on histology . The abdominail x-ray findings had little impact on the clinicians decision to take the patients to theatre. Also, even in those cases where the abdominal x-ray is confirmed to be abnormal the maj ority of the time the x-ray fails to pick up any abnormality, and is unable to contribute towards di agnosis.
Share this article