Acute appendicitis. How many uncorrect diagnosis? A clinical and histological evaluation of 124 cases treated with emergency procedure.

Acute appendicitis is a very common disease in western countries, affecting the entire population with higher prevalence in younger people. The diagnosis of the disease is still basically performed through the clinical evaluation of the patient, while peripheral White Cell Count or imaging techniques such as ultrasonography are poorly helpful. Therefore, a great number of patients is operated without finding a severe involvement of the appendix at intraoperative observation. To evaluate the rate of false acute appendicitis and to correlate the histological involvement with the clinical behavior of the disease the Authors carried a prospective study during a period of 28 months on 124 patients with a diagnosis of acute appendicitis treated on emergency basis.