Co-relation between pre-operative imaging findings and per-operative findings in acute abdomen

Abstract

Background: The term acute abdomen refers to a sudden, severe abdominal pain that is less than 24 hours in duration. It is in many cases an emergent condition requiring urgent and specific diagnosis and/or surgical interventions. Abdominal pain can be just one of the symptoms. Most frequently its cause is benign and/or self-limited, but more serious causes may require urgent intervention. Many new diagnostic and management aids have been introduced into the surgical decision-making process over the past decade or so to improve clinical performance. Correct pre-operative diagnosis of acute abdomen remains challenging despite good history taking and clinical examination, and improvement in new imaging techniques including computer-aided diagnosis, ultrasound imaging, computed tomography and laparoscopy. These imaging techniques need sophisticated equipment and specialist expertise round the clock which is not feasible always. Hence, we have tried studying the accuracy of clinical correlation between these newer modalities of diagnosis and intraoperative diagnosis.Methods: Patients were clinically diagnosed, and then a pre-operative diagnosis was made based on radiological investigations and was then compared with the intra-operative findings for its accuracy.Results: The newer modalities of radiological diagnostic techniques proved to be more accurate in diagnosing the cases of acute abdomen.Conclusions: There was a huge range of correlation between newer diagnostic modalities and our clinical and pre- and post-operative findings.