Relationship between increasing ALVARADO score and severity of acute appendicitis

Aim: to determine whether an increasing alvarado score was related to the severity of acute appendicitis,as reported in per-operative findings. methods: this cross-sectional analytical study was conducted in surgical unit-1,jinnah hospital,lahore,taking record of patients from july 2013 to december 2013. alvarado score was calculated from patient records. severity was categorized as normal,inflamed,gangrenous and perforated and noted from operation notes. mean alvarado score for each category of inflammation were then compared using anova t-test,keeping p <0.05 to be statistically significant. results: the mean age was 21.5±13.4 years and 104 (59.8%) male and 70(40.2%) female patients. the mean alvarado score of patients having normal appendix was 4.5,6 for inflammed,7.5 for gangrenous and 8 for perforated. comparison of means revealed a p value 0.001. conclusion: there is a direct relationship between increasing alvarado score and severity of appendicitis.