{
  "abstract": "Objective To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) performed by paediatric emergency medicine (PEM) clinicians for suspected paediatric appendicitis.Design Prospective observational study.Setting Two paediatric emergency departments in the UK.Patients Patients aged 1–16 years presenting with abdominal pain and right lower quadrant tenderness on examination.Primary outcome measures Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of POCUS.Secondary outcome measure Comparison to radiology-performed ultrasound in terms of agreement of findings.Results 226 patients were included in our study, of which 130 (58%) were boys. The mean age of patients was 9.7 years. 28 patients had appendicitis confirmed on histological examination, giving a prevalence of 12.4%. Compared with our reference standard, POCUS demonstrated a sensitivity of 0.89 (0.71–0.97), specificity 0.96 (0.92–0.98) positive predictive value 0.76 (0.57–0.88) and negative predictive value 0.98 (0.95–1.00). The appendix was visualised in 82/226 patients (36%). There was a very high degree of agreement between POCUS and radiology-performed ultrasound with a Cohen’s kappa (k) of 0.87 (95% CI 0.70 to 1.00).Conclusion POCUS performed by PEM clinicians has a high degree of accuracy in detecting paediatric appendicitis. There was a high level of agreement between POCUS and radiology-performed ultrasound.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Paediatric Emergency Department, Sunderland Royal Hospital, Sunderland, UK"
      ],
      "name": "David McCreary"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Paediatric Emergency Department, Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Glasgow, Scotland, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Nigel Chan"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Paediatric Emergency Department, Sunderland Royal Hospital, Sunderland, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Bethaney Miller"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellbeing, University of Sunderland Faculty of Applied Sciences, Sunderland, England, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Jon Rees"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Paediatric Emergency Department, Sunderland Royal Hospital, Sunderland, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Bhaskar Sarvesh"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Paediatric Emergency Department, Sunderland Royal Hospital, Sunderland, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Niall Mullen"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Evaluating the diagnostic accuracy of point-of-care ultrasound for paediatric appendicitis: a UK multicentre observational study",
  "uid": "0ab9995f-d330-51b1-81f2-3f42a46f7f7e"
}