APPENDICITIS INFLAMMATORY RESPONSE SCORE FOR DIAGNOSIS OF ACUTE APPENDICITIS AS COMPARED TO ALVARADO SCORE
Authors: Boney Perumal 
Published: January 2024

Background: Acute appendicitis was first described by Reginald. H. Fitz in 1886. It is the most frequent cause of acute abdominal pain requiring surgical intervention. Annually appendectomy is the most common abdominal operation performed on emergency basis. Lifetime risk for developing acute appendicitis is 8.6% in men and 6.7% in women. Acute Appendicitis inciting event in most instances is obstruction of the appendix lumen. Acute Appendicitis is classified as catarrhal phlegmonus, gangrenous and perforated. This classification describes the evolutionary stage of disease. Acute appendicitis is more of a clinical diagnosis present as pain abdomen with classical migration from peri-umbilical region to right iliac fossa in 75% of patient nausea and anorexia. Clinical signs are mostly pyrexia, localized tenderness in the right iliac fossa, muscle guarding and rebound tenderness. Laboratory and radiological investigation are also important tool for the diagnosis. Scoring system have been designed to aid in the clinical assessment of patient with acute appendicitis. The most used scoring is the Alvarado score is best performing in validation studies. Alvarado score doesnt incorporate C reactive protein as a variable, many studies shows the importance of C reactive protein in assessment of patient with appendicitis. Objective: Appendicitis Inflammatory Response score as a diagnostic tool for acute appendicitis in our hospital setting. Study design: A Prospective Study. Study period: October 2016 â€“ September 2018. Study setting: Department of General Surgery, Justice K. S. Hegde charitable hospital. Study population: Patients admitted with signs and symptoms of acute appendicitis at Justice K.S. Hegde charitable Hospital, Mangalore. Sample size: 123 patients using epiinfo software for diagnostic test with PPV 64% with article reference (12) confidence interval of 95% and power of study at 80%. Study group: Patients clinically diagnosed with acute appendicitis and giving consent for the study. Methodology: The present study was conducted in the Department of General surgery, Justice K.S. Hegde charitable Hospital Mangalore, in 123 patients, of any age, who were admitted with complaint of acute appendicitis. Patients included in the study were finally correlate with the histopathological report. Result: The maximum patients were in the age group of 11-20 year compromising around 30.9%. Most of the patients were female around 56.1%. Histopathological report showed around 82.1% as Acute appendicitis, 6.5% acute on chronic, recurrent appendicitis 8.9%, chronic appendicitis, granulomatous appendicitis & lymphoid hyperplasia of appendix were .8% each. AIR classified around 46.3% in low probability, 48% indeterminate and 5.7% in high probability group. Alvarado classified around 3.3% in unlikely, 51.2% in possible diagnosis, 37.4% acute and 8.1% in definite group. On spearman correlation coefficient there was found to be a strong positive correlation between both the scoring system and statistically significant p value of 0.0001. AIR score showed a sensitivity of 56.44% and specificity of 59.09% at score >4. Alvarado had a sensitivity of 98.02 % and specificity of 9.09% at score >4. Alvarado and AIR showed 9.90% and 6.93% at score >8 respectively. The specificity of Alvarado and AIR was 100% respectively. The AIR at a low and higher score had a high PPV and NPV, that may help in correctly diagnosing the patient with acute appendicitis and ruling out from non- appendicitis patient. Conclusion: 1. Alvarado score is better diagnostic tool for acute appendicitis as compared to the AIR score. 2. Alvarado score has higher sensitivity in score of >4 as compared to AIR. 3. AIR score with low sensitivity has low discriminatory power in ruling out patient with acute appendicitis.