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Appendicitis test being developed

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Los Angeles Times

Published: June 24, 2009

Researchers have identified a chemical in urine that is closely associated with appendicitis in children and are working to develop a test that could be used to diagnose the condition, a test that would increase both the likelihood of performing surgery before the appendix bursts and prevent unnecessary surgery.

Early results show the test is accurate, yielding few incidents in which cases are missed (false negatives) or children are incorrectly diagnosed with the condition (false positives), reported a team from Children's Hospital Boston on Tuesday in Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Appendicitis is the most common childhood surgical emergency. The lifetime prevalence is 9 percent for males and 7 percent for females. Most cases occur in childhood or adolescence.

Richard Bachur of Children's Hospital and his colleagues studied urine from healthy children and those with surgically confirmed appendicitis and concluded that high levels of one chemical, leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein, correlated closely with an inflamed appendix.

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