Appendicitis in children: color Doppler sonography.

The authors used color Doppler ultrasonography (US) to evaluate 33 children with suspected appendicitis and found locally increased blood flow in all of 10 patients with appendicitis or periappendiceal abscess; the studies were normal in 16 patients without appendicitis. The gray-scale sonographic results were concordant in all 26 of these patients. In two other patients with presumptive mesenteric adenitis and in one patient with a hemorrhagic ovarian cyst at gray-scale US, color Doppler imaging showed no increased perfusion and aided in confirming the absence of a significant inflammatory process. In four other children, color Doppler US clarified gray-scale sonographic findings that might have been confused with complicated appendicitis and aided in the diagnosis of other causes of acute abdominal pain. These findings indicate that color Doppler US is a useful adjunct to gray-scale US in evaluating children with suspected acute appendicitis.