Paediatric Appendicitis - An Easy Way of Early Diagnosis

Early diagnosis of acute appendicitis in children is a challenge for the paediatric surgeons. The objectives of this prospective study were to compare the accuracy of MAS & PAS in the early diagnosis & treatment of acute appendicitis in children and to reduce morbidity of negative appendectomy or delayed appendectomy. In recent years, about 12 different scoring systems have been developed to combat this situation. Alvardo score, Modified Alvardo Score (MAS) & Pediatric Appendicitis Score (PAS) are commonly used diagnostic tools among these. PAS is very much simple to apply in young children with acute abdomen who are non-cooperative. This study shows more accurate early diagnosis of acute appendicitis in children with PAS by repeated physical examinations. The specificity & diagnostic accuracy of PAS were 100% & 92.94% respectively where MAS were 84.21% & 90.59% accordingly. These organized scoring systems give us accurate guideline about hospitalization, observation & indication of immediate appendectomy in children and based only on symptoms, signs & simple blood test. Negative appendectomy can be reduced significantly if we use this scoring system.