Publication:

The role of rebound tenderness in acute appendicitis and appendicular perforation

Background Acute appendicitis is the most common surgical emergency. Inspite of sophisticated new investigations mainstay of diagnosis depends on clinical sign and symptoms, rebound tenderness is very important sign with controversial views regarding it in available literature. Hence this study was undertaken to prove its efficacy of it related to rule out appendicular perforations.

Methods This study was conducted in 418 patients with 186 female and 251 male. Patients were of acute appendicitis operated for appendicectomy were included in the study. Data analysis was done by data statistic software.

Results The sensitivity and specificity of rebound tenderness to diagnose acute appendicitis is 65% and 73.6% respectively whereas the sensitivity and specificity of rebound tenderness to diagnose appendicular perforation was 94% and23.3% respectively with positive predictive value is 5 and negative predictive value is 99.

Conclusions Hence it indicates that rebound tenderness is very important to rule out complications like perforation or peritonitis and to support diagnosis of acute appendicitis. It has minimal significance to diagnose perforation of appendix as positive predictive value is less.