OBJECTIVE: To validate a simplified scoring system as an aid to the diagnosis of @entity697 . DESIGN: Open prospective study. SETTING: County district hospital, and university hospital, Sweden. SUBJECTS: 1167 @entity1 with suspected @entity698 . MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Correlation between scoring system and final diagnosis. RESULTS: A total of 475 @entity1 were operated on and 392 (82.5%) of these had histologically verified @entity698 . The negative laparotomy rate was 17.5% (11.2% for @entity1 and 25.4% for @entity1 ). The sensitivity of the scoring system for @entity698 at the main cut-off point (score -2 or more) was 0.73 and the specificity was 0.87. At the cut-off level (score - 17 or less) for predicting non-specific @entity490 (NSAP) the proportion of correctly classified @entity1 was 0.72 and the proportion of false negatives ( @entity1 with @entity698 classified as NSAP) was 0.14. Analysis of the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve showed that the scoring system performed slightly worse in the university hospital (area 0.83) than in the district hospital where it was originally developed (area 0.89). CONCLUSION: The scoring system was a valid instrument for discriminating between @entity697 and NSAP in the two centres studied. Use of the scoring system in daily clinical work was associated with a reduced rate of negative laparotomies.

Diagnostic decision support in suspected XXXX : validation of a simplified scoring system.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['women', 'Patients', 'patients', 'men'] @entity697 :: ('MESH:D000208', 'Disease') :: ['acute appendicitis'] @entity698 :: ('MESH:D001064', 'Disease') :: ['appendicitis'] @entity490 :: ('MESH:D015746', 'Disease') :: ['abdominal pain']
@entity697 :: (MESH:D000208,Disease) :: ['acute appendicitis']
