ALVARADO SCORE;

Objective: To evaluate the usefulness and accuracy of Alvarado scoring system in the precise diagnosis of acuteappendicitis to decrease the rate of negative appendectomies. Design: Descriptive study. Place and duration of study: The study wasconducted in Military Hospital Rawapindi from Aug 2010 to Dec 2011. Patients and methods: In this study, initially 351 cases byconvenience sampling, were included but later 31 patients were excluded specially females because they turned out to be cases of PID ,renal / ureteric colic or UTI . Patients with score of 4 or above underwent appendectomy. 320 patients were operated. All exceptgangrenous and perforated appendices were subjected to histopathology. Six operated cases were found to be having normalappendices. Twenty patients were treated conservatively because their scores were less than 4 according to Alvarado scoring system.Those patients were observed till their symptoms settled. Results: Male to female ratio was 1.46:1. 71.2 %( n=196) patients werebetween 13-24years. On the basis of Alvarado score 62.50 %( n=200) patients secured 7 and above while 31.25 %( n=100) werehaving 4 and above score. Remaining 6.25 %( n=20) had less than 4 score. Out of total (n=300) 98 %( n=294) were histopathologicallyproven to be acute appendicitis while 2 %( n=6) were of normal histopathology. Conclusions: We concluded that Alvarado Score is auseful parameter / yardstick in diagnosis of acute appendicitis