Purpose: Appendicitis is a common inflammation that apart from the clinical evaluation, that diagnosed with the help of radiology tests including abdominal X-ray, ultrasonography, computed tomography and, more recently, magnetic resonance imaging. The purpose of the study was to check out influence of oral administrated contrast media in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis.
Material & Methods: We examined 510 patients who underwent appendectomies between years 2010 to 2014, 198 underwent computed tomography to diagnose appendicitis before surgery.
Results: The types of computed tomography (CT) used for diagnosis appendicitis before appendectomy were with oral and intravenous contrast agent administration, 162 patients, without oral and intravenous contrast agents, 28 patients, with intravenous administration without oral contrast, 5 patients, without intravenous administration with oral contrast, 3 patients. A correlation was made between the findings of abdominal tomography and the findings after surgery. A diagnostic matching was found in 90.4% of patients and the 9.6% of diagnosis was changed during the operation.
According to the presence of a contrast agent in the caecum, it was found that in 89/198 (44.9%) was not present in the caecum, and 109/198 (55.1%) – caecum was filled with contrast material. The results showed that the surgery findings was not depended on the presence or absence of contrast in the caecum (p = 0.441). Another finding of the study was that in the female the contrast agents was found in a higher percentage in the caecum compared of the man (P = 0.001).
Conclusion: Our study found similar results for literature in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis by examining computed tomography. We found that majority examinations through abdominal tomography in our institution were used intravenous and oral contrast agent. However, it is unclear, what the effect of contrast media in the diagnosis appendicitis and therefor is needed new reconsideration in the use of contrast media for this purpose.
