Evaluation of Acute Abdominal Pain Reviewed

In the recent edition of AFP guidelines for evaluation of abdominal pain is published. Though this article is meant to be for primary care doctors, i think we should know this too.

Specific clinical recommendations for practice, all of level of evidence rating C, are as follows:

• Appendicitis cannot be ruled out by a normal white blood cell count.
• In patients with epigastric pain, simultaneous amylase and lipase measurements are recommended.
• For evaluation of patients with acute right upper quadrant abdominal pain, ultrasonography is the imaging study of choice.
• For evaluating patients with acute right lower quadrant or left lower quadrant abdominal pain, CT is the imaging study of choice.