The Predictive Value of Modified Alvarado Score in Diagnosis of Acute Appendicitis

Tardiness or delay in diagnosis of appendicitis, as the most common cause of acute abdomen around the world, is the most important factor in increasing mortality rate in patients. Therefore, early diagnosis is still a challenge for surgeons to be based on signs and symptoms and laboratory tests to make them sure to decide about the surgery.
In a cross-sectional antegrade study, 200 patient who had come with acute abdominal pain to Modarres hospital emergency room, Tehran, Iran, in 12 months were enrolled; the data of 181 patient were complete that was relevant to our study. Alvarado and modified Alvarado scales were used for data collection by the chief resident of surgery. Pathology report was the standard criterion in this survey.
Findings: The accuracy of modified Alvarado score in diagnosis of appendicitis was 81.4% in comparison with 74.0% of Alvarado score. Our modified score with the sensitivity of 88.0% (vs. 67.7%) and the same specificity of 64.4% in detecting normal cases and positive predicting value (PPV) of 66.0% (vs. 41.9%) in diagnosis of acute appendicitis and positive predicting value of 87.3% (vs. 84.1%) in cases of score of more than of 6 was a better score compare to Alvarado score.
Adding abdominal pain, male gender, and qualitative C-reactive protein (CRP) to Alvarado score was resulted in obtaining a higher accuracy in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis.