Comparison of Alvarado Score and Ultrasound Diagnostic Efficacy in the Case of Acute Appendicitis

Acute appendicitis is one of the most common causes of abdominal pain and is an emer-gency surgical procedure. Appropriate and early diagnosis of appendicitis followed by immidiate andproper action can significantly reduce its mortality rate and disability. Due to the high prevalence of neg-ative appendectomy cases, the aim of present study was the comparison of Alvarado score and ultrasounddiagnostic efficacy in the case of acute appendicitis

This cross-sectional study was performedon patients referred to the emergency department of Hamadan Besat hospital during 1397-1397 whounderwent appendectomy with the final diagnosis of acute appendicitis. The data of this study werecollected by file reading method and sampling was done using census method. Extracted data frompatients’ records included signs and symptoms of clinical examination, laboratory findings, ultrasoundresults, and pathological findings after appendectomy. Alvarado score was calculated based on clinicaland laboratory findings. The final result of Alvarado score and sonography was compared with the resultof pathology report as the gold standard and the indices of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictivevalue, negative predictive value and accuracy were calculated.

Out of 100 patients studied, 51were female and 49 were male. The mean age of patients was 24.24±13.99 years. Compared with thepathology report, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accu-racy of Alvarado score in diagnosing acute appendicitis were 92.9%, 75.0%, 89.8%, 33.3% and 84.5%,respectively and for ultrasound were 0.60%, 50.5%, 89.5%, 15.0% and 58.8%, respectively.

The Alvarado score is very helpful in the clinical decisions of acute appendicitis in suspected patients andits diagnostic efficacy is higher than ultrasound. However, with the help of both diagnostic methods(Alvarado score and ultrasound), diagnostic accuracy may be increased.