Diagnosis of acute appendicitis in pregnancy.

Although the clinical diagnosis of appendicitis in pregnancy seems to be complicated by the physiologic changes of pregnancy, evidence from controlled studies is lacking. The aims of this study were to determine whether there are any features of appendicitis in pregnant women that would help to establish the diagnosis and whether any difference exists between the presentation of appendicitis in pregnant and nonpregnant women. Twenty-eight pregnant women with a clinical diagnosis of appendicitis were compared with an equal number of nonpregnant patients matched for age and randomly selected from a group of patients who had appendicitis. No differences were observed in the presenting symptoms, physical signs and laboratory tests. The false-positive rates were identical. The results indicated that the diagnosis of appendicitis is no more difficult in the pregnant state than in the nonpregnant state.