Objective: To assess the diagnostic performance of CT for pediatric patients with suspected appendicitis in various clinical settings and the proportion of acute appendicitis on final diagnosis among equivocal CT findings.
Methods: MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched until October 21, 2017, for studies investigating diagnostic performance of CT for acute appendicitis in pediatric patients confirmed by histopathologic findings and/or clinical follow-up. Pooled estimates of sensitivity and specificity were calculated using a hierarchical logistic regression modeling. The proportion of true appendicitis among patients with inconclusive CT results was obtained using fixed and random effects meta-analyses.
Results: Twenty-two articles with 3396 patients were included. The pooled sensitivity and specificity were 95% (95% CI, 93-97%) and 94% (95% CI, 90-96%), respectively, and the area under the hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic (HSROC) curve was 0.98 (95% CI, 0.96-0.99). Subgroup analyses revealed a comparable diagnostic performance in the low-dose CT group (sensitivity, 97%; specificity, 96%) and the unenhanced group (sensitivity, 95%; specificity, 95%). Other subgroups (publication year, study design, enrolled population, true appendicitis proportion, CT channel number, and slice thickness) also showed good diagnostic performance. Six studies reporting the true appendicitis proportion among patients with equivocal CT findings had pooled proportion of 17% (95% CI, 9-29%).
Conclusions: CT showed good performance for suspected appendicitis in pediatric patients under various clinical settings, including in cases with dose reduction or absence of IV contrast. The prevalence of true appendicitis among patients with equivocal appendicitis results on CTs was not low; therefore, clinical attention should not be disregarded in this population.
Keywords: Appendicitis; Appendix; Child; X-ray computed tomography.