Parameters for a knowledge base for acute appendicitis.

Acute appendicitis is the most common cause of acute abdomen requiring surgical intervention. The clinical diagnosis of acute appendicitis is not always easy due to variable symptomatology, particularly at the onset. The contributions of history-taking and physical examination in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis was studied in connection with the Research Committee of the World Organization of Gastroenterology (OMGE) survey of acute abdominal pain. Especially the suitability of diagnostic parameters in the construction of an expert system for automatic decision making was studied. The results clearly show that it is possible to construct an expert system for automatic decision making in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis.