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Appendicitis may be missed on initial presentation to the emergency department (ED) due to nonspecific symptoms. To identify factors associated with missed diagnoses, researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of 123,711 adult and pediatric patients with appendicitis identified from a large insurance claims database. The authors defined a potentially missed diagnosis as a diagnosis of appendicitis within 30 days after an ED visit for undifferentiated symptoms associated with appendicitis (e.g., abdominal pain or fever) at which appendicitis was not diagnosed
Overall, 5.7% of patients had potentially missed appendicitis. Patients with no abdominal pain or abdominal pain with constipation were more likely to have potentially missed appendi…