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99M TECHNETIUM LABELLED LEUCOCYTE SCANNING IN ACUTE LOWER ABDOMINAL PAIN: CAN IT REDUCE THE NEGATIVE APPENDECTOMY RATE?
Author(s) -
Moore James,
Bartholomeusz Dylan,
Wycherley Alan,
Devitt Peter,
Toouli James,
Drew Paul
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of surgery
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.111
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1445-2197
pISSN - 0004-8682
DOI - 10.1111/j.1445-2197.1995.tb01768.x
Subject(s) - medicine , acute abdominal pain , acute appendicitis , abdominal pain , appendicitis , radiology , technetium , prospective cohort study , incidence (geometry) , clinical diagnosis , diagnostic accuracy , surgery , nuclear medicine , intensive care medicine , physics , optics
While the incidence of ‘negative’ appendicetomy has long been justified as a necessary evil in the management of acute appendicitis, attempts to improve diagnostic accuracy have met with mixed results. In a prospective study of 34 selected patients who presented with acute lower abdominal pain the potential role of 99m Technetium labelled leucocyte scanning in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis has been evaluated. Patient management was not based on the result of the nuclear scan. The clinical outcome was correlated with the scan diagnosis. There was one false positive and one false negative scan result with respect to the clinical diagnosis of appendicitis yielding a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 96%. 99m Technetium labelled leucocyte scanning may have an important role in the assessment of selected patients presenting with acute lower abdominal pain.