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Patients with suspected appendicitis may benefit from risk scores

By Amy Wallace

July 24 (UPI) -- Research shows the Appendicitis Inflammatory Response, or AIR, score may help to better diagnose and treat patients with suspected appendicitis.

The classification system is based on patient symptoms such as pain, vomiting, body temperature, rebound tenderness or muscular guarding, and basic laboratory tests such as white blood cell count, C-reactive protein concentration and the proportion of neutrophil granulocytes.

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The study, published July 21 in the British Journal of Surgery, showed the AIR system can reduce the need for diagnostic imaging, hospital admissions and surgery in patients with suspected appendicitis.

Researchers followed 1,068 patients age 10 and older at 21 emergency surgical centers and from age 5 and older at three university pediatric centers from September 2009 and January 2012 who had their symptoms assessed with the AIR score.

The results suggest that use of the AIR score-based algorithm resulted in less imaging, fewer hospital admissions, fewer negative explorations and operations for non-perforated appendicitis for low-risk patients.

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