[Ultrasound in the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of acute appendicitis in childhood].
Acute appendicitis represents a leading cause of an abdominal pain in children which requires urgent surgical treatment.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate into value of ultrasound (US) in diagnostics and differential-diagnostics of acute appendicitis in children.


METHODS
A prospective study during a two-year period, was conducted to analyse abdominal US findings in 95 patients, 3-16 years of age who had acute abdominal pain. In all patients we were checking for clinical symptoms of an acute abdomen: pain, nausea, vomiting, fever, frequent urination, diarrhea, duration of symptoms and count of leukocytes. US findings were compared with pathohistological results We have used Toshiba Sonolayer SAL 77 ultrasound machine with a convex 3.75 MHz probe and a linear 8 MHz probe.


RESULTS
In 50 patients sonographic diagnoses were confirmed by surgery .36 patients had other pathological conditions that lead to an acute abdomen. Nine findings were false-negative. The study results reveal that the US scanning enables not only reliable diagnosis of acute appendicitis, but also reliable differential-diagnosis of other pathological conditions and diseases.


CONCLUSIONS
US should be the imaging method of choice in diagnostic evaluation of little patients with acute abdominal pain. This method represents a great help in differential diagnosis not only to eliminate acute appendicitis but also to confirm accuracy of the diagnosis.
Vegar-Zubović
Snjezana
S
Institut za radiologiju, Klinicki centar Univerziteta u Sarajevu.
Lincender
Lidija
L
Dizdarević
Sabina
S
Dalagija
Faruk
F
D000006:Abdomen, Acute / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology; D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D001064:Appendicitis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014463:Ultrasonography