An Investigation of the Usability of Complete Blood Count Parameters in the Diagnosis of Acute Appendicitis

Abstract

Introduction and Objective: Acute appendicitis is one of the most commonly diagnosed diseases in emergency departments, and it is the abdominal pathology that most frequently requires surgery. The purpose of this study was to investigate the value in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis of routinely investigated complete blood count parameters in patients presenting to the emergency department with abdominal pain. Material and method: This study was planned as a retrospective cohort among patients over 18 years who were diagnosed with acute appendicitis in the tertiary emergency department in Türkiye between January 1 and December 31, 2019. Healthy volunteers aged over 18 with no active complaints undergoing routine blood tests for health screening were included in the control group. Both groups’ records were retrieved retrospectively from the hospital database. Data consisting of the groups’ demographic characteristics at the time of presentation to the emergency department and parameters obtained from complete blood tests were analyzed. Results: A total of 1200 people were included in the study, 600 of which were in the control group. Men constituted 388 (64.7%) of the acute appendicitis patients and 380 (63.3%) of the control group(p=0.674). Leukocyte, neutrophil, nucleated red blood cell, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, and platelet-lymphocyte ratio values were significantly higher in the acute appendicitis group compared to the control group(p