Diagnosis and classification of pediatric acute appendicitis by artificial intelligence methods: An investigator-independent approach.

Acute appendicitis is one of the major causes for emergency surgery in childhood and adolescence. Appendectomy is still the therapy of choice, but conservative strategies are increasingly being studied for uncomplicated inflammation. Diagnosis of acute appendicitis remains challenging, especially due to the frequently unspecific clinical picture.

Sonographic differentiation of complicated from uncomplicated appendicitis.

Objective: This study aims to differentiate acute uncomplicated and complicated appendicitis, by investigating the correlation between sonographic findings and histological results in different types of paediatric appendicitis.

Methods: This is a retrospective study of 1017 paediatric patients (age < 18 years) who underwent ultrasound by paediatric radiologists before appendicectomy at our institution between 2006 and 2016. Histologically, uncomplicated appendicitis was primarily associated with transmural infiltration of neutrophil granulocytes, while complicated appendicitis was characterised by transmural myonecrosis.

Correction to: Phlegmonous appendicitis in children is characterized by eosinophilia in white blood cell counts.

The original article can be found online.

Phlegmonous appendicitis in children is characterized by eosinophilia in white blood cell counts.

Background: Phlegmonous and complicated appendicitis represent independent entities depending on hereditary immunological mechanisms. However, clinically there are no means to distinguish uncomplicated phlegmonous from complicated appendicitis. The ability to distinguish these two forms of appendicitis is relevant as current attempts are to treat both forms of the disease differently.