A group of radiologists says it has developed an easier way to diagnose appendicitis, often a tricky medical call that can mean unnecessary surgery for thousands each year.
The technique relies on a special type of computer enhanced X-ray, or CAT scan, which Dr. Patrick Rao said is easier to interpret than traditional tests and is cost-effective.Rao and colleagues at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital presented the findings of their six-month study Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
Appendicitis can be hard to diagnose because it resembles a number of other abdominal problems. Doctors perform about 250,000 operations in the United States each year for suspected appendicitis and as many as 20 percent - or 50,000 - turn out to have been avoidable.
Rao said his group used its procedure on 100 patients. Of those, 97 were diagnosed correctly, two were classified as "false positives" and one case was rejected as inappropriate for the study.
Dr. Thomas Vargish, a surgeon and appendicitis expert at the University of Chicago Hospitals, said the study is interesting. But he said the sample size was small and the technique may not be appropriate in all cases, especially in those cases that are easy to diagnose.
"It's a nice test that is probably of some benefit," he said.
Most doctors diagnose appendicitis by observing the patient, conducting laboratory tests and, occasionally, performing an ultrasound or a CAT scan. But both ultrasound and CAT scans can be difficult to interpret.
Rao and his colleagues made three modifications to the standard CAT scan to produce a procedure they call focused appendix CT or FACT.
They use a spiral scanning pattern, which they said offers a better picture. Instead of administering X-ray dyes orally or intravenously to illuminate the area, they insert dye directly into the colon. And thirdly, they scan only the region of the appendix.