The role of imaging in children with suspected appendicitis: the UK perspective

The diagnosis of uncomplicated acute appendicitis is often straightforward, allowing timely appendicectomy without the need for expensive tests or imaging. Repeated clinical examination by an experienced surgeon has traditionally been the key to making the diagnosis in both straightforward and difficult cases. Nonetheless, all surgeons will remove some normal appendices. Sometimes it can be particularly difficult to make the diagnosis, especially in the child under 5 years of age, in teenage girls, in young women and in the elderly. When difficult to make, the diagnosis may be significantly delayed and since the pathology is progressive, the patient may suffer potentially avoidable complications. This paper looks at two potential roles for imaging. Firstly, can imaging, applied selectively, help make the difficult diagnosis less difficult and so reduce delays and morbidity? Secondly, could imaging all patients with suspected appendicitis reduce the number of normal appendices removed from children who seem to have all the signs and symptoms of straightforward uncomplicated acute appendicitis but who actually have presumed self-resolving non-appendiceal pathology? The answer to these questions may depend on three factors that are not entirely independent: a surgical unit’s current audited negative appendicectomy rate, population base/case mix and the expertise of the examining surgeon. Individual surgeons and some surgical units, by policy, use modern imaging techniques with quite different frequencies that may be appropriate depending on these three factors. This article argues that a careful history and repeated clinical examination is the key to making the diagnosis, with imaging, primarily ultrasonography, being used in patients with a palpable mass or in those having had 48 h of hospital observation without progress. In Europe, imaging has played a limited role in the investigation of the child with suspected appendicitis with the diagnosis relying on repeated examination by an experienced clinician. Ongoing changes in surgical training in the UK may affect the acquisition of clinical expertise that is crucial to this clinical management. High-quality surgical training and surgical audit are needed to monitor the delivery of care and to ensure that the care pathway being used is appropriate for the local resources and population.