Abstract: Background: Acute appendicitis is a common surgical disease with varied clinical presentation, diagnosis of which, can be at times a clinical challenge. In order to aid in the clinical diagnosis various scoring system have been designed one of which is the appendicitis inflammatory response score (AIR score). The present study is designed to validate the diagnostic accuracy of AIR score in patient with suspected acute appendicitis.
Method: The present study included consecutive patient presenting to the emergency department of KIMS hospital Hubli, between Dec2015 to Sept 2017 with acute pain abdomen in the right iliac fossa of suspected appendicular origin. All the clinical data and laboratory investigation necessary for the evaluation of AIR score were collected. The AIR score was then compared with the histopathological report of the resected specimen.
Results: In the present study 107 patient, with 70 male and 37 female where included. The AIR score was calculated and was compared with the histopathological report of the resected specimen. AIR score had a good statistical discriminatory property for the diagnosis of acute appendicitis in patients with acute pain in the right iliac fossa, with a sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 88% when the cutoff for diagnosing acute appendicitis was placed at less than 8, with p value of <.015. It had a sensitivity of 44% and a specificity of 100% when the cut off score was taken as more than 8, with a p value of < than. 005.
Conclusion: The present study validates the diagnostic accuracy of AIR score in suspected case of acute appendicitis with a sensitivity of 78.57% and specificity of 85.71%.
