Abstract
The term “acute abdomen” defines a clinical syndrome characterized by the sudden onset of severe abdominal pain requiring emergency medical or surgical treatment [1]. In a review of approximately 30,000 patients with acute abdomen, de Bombal [2] observed that the most common causes of acute abdominal pain were represented by appendicitis, acute cholecystitis, and small-bowel obstruction whereas in one third of patients no cause could be determined. Since many of these conditions may have similar early clinical presentations, diagnostic imaging tools including abdominal plain film (APF), ultrasound (US), and multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) play a pivotal role in the management of patients presenting to the emergency department with acute non-traumatic abdominal pain.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Silen W (1996) Cope’s early diagnosis of the acute abdomen, 19th ed. Oxford University Press, New York
de Bombal FT (1991) Introduction. In: de Bombal FT (ed) Diagnosis of acute abdominal pain, 2nd ed. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, pp 1–10
Mindelzun RE, Jeffrey RB Jr (1997) Unenhanced helical CT for evaluating acute abdominal pain: a little more cost, a lot more information. Radiology 205:43–47
Malone AJ Jr, Wolf CR, Malmed AS, Melliere BF (1993) Diagnosis of acute appendicitis: value of unenhanced CT. Am J Roentgenol 160:763–766
Lane MJ, Katz DS, Ross BA et al (1997) Unenhanced helical CT for suspected acute appendicitis. Am J Roentgenol 168:405–409
Rao PM, Rhea JT, Novelline RA et al (1997) Helical CT technique for the diagnosis of appendicitis: prospective evaluation of a focused appendix CT examination. Radiology 202:139–144
Puylaert JB, Rutgers PH, Lalisang RI et al (1987) A prospective study of ultrasonography in the diagnosis of appendicitis. N Engl J Med 317:666–669
Lane MJ, Liu DM, Huynh MD et al (1999) Suspected acute appendicitis: non-enhanced helical CT in 300 consecutive patients. Radiology 213:341–346
Miki T, Ogata S, Uto M et al (2005) Enhanced multidetector-row computed tomography (MDCT) in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis and its severity. Radiat Med 23:242–255
Kamel IR, Goldberg SN, Keogan MT et al (2000) Right lower quadrant pain and suspected appendicitis: non focused appendiceal CT-review of 100 cases. Radiology 217:159–163
Paulson EK, Harris JP, Jaffe TA et al (2005) Acute appendicitis: added diagnostic value of coronal reformations from isotropic voxels at multidetector row CT. Radiology 235:879–885
Zangos S, Steenburg SD, Phillips KD et al (2007) Added diagnostic value of coronal reformations with 64-slice multidetector row computed tomography. Acta Radiol 14:19–27
Aufort S, Charra L, Lesnik A et al (2005) Multidetector CT of bowel obstruction: value of post-processing. Eur Radiol 15:2323–2329
Pereira JM, Sirlin CB, Pinto PS et al (2004) Disproportionate fat stranding: a helpful CT sign in patients with acute abdominal pain. RadioGraphics 24:703–715
Shin LK, Halpern D, Weston SR et al (2005) Prospective CT diagnosis of stump appendicitis. Am J Roentgenol 184:62–64
Levine CD, Aizenstein O, Lehavi O, Blachar A (2005) Why we miss the diagnosis of appendicitis on abdominal CT: evaluation of imaging features of appendicitis incorrectly diagnosed on CT. Am J Roentgenol 184:855–859
Grassi R, Di Mizio R, Pinto A et al (2004) Serial plain abdominal film findings in the assessment of acute abdomen: spastic ileus, hypotonic ileus, mechanical ileus and paralytic ileus. Radiol Med 108:56–70
Felzko PJ, Mezwa DG, Farah MC, White BD (1992) Clinical significance of pneumatosis of the bowel wall. RadioGraphics 12:1068–1078
Ahneida AT, Melão L, Viamonte B et al (2009) Epiploic appendagitis: an entity frequentely unknown to clinicians-diagnostc imaging, pitfalls, and look-alikes. Am J Roentgenol 193:1243–1251
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Italia
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Filippone, A., Cianci, R., Cotroneo, A.R. (2012). Errors in the Interpretation of the Non-traumatic Acute Abdomen. In: Romano, L., Pinto, A. (eds) Errors in Radiology. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2339-0_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2339-0_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Milano
Print ISBN: 978-88-470-2338-3
Online ISBN: 978-88-470-2339-0
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)