Retrospective Study to Explore a New Predictor for the Early Diagnosis of Perforated Acute Appendicitis

Background: Acute appendicitis (AA) is one of the most common indications for emergency abdominal surgery. Objective: To assess diagnostic and prognostic role of serum bilirubin in the management and diagnosis of acute appendicitis, as well as confirming the relationship between them. Methods: A data has been collected about Patients diagnosed with acute appendicitis male and females from the age of 4 up to 80 among king Fahad hospital and East Jeddah hospital during the period from 1st Jan 2012 up to 30th July 2017, with sample size of 888 patients. Results: The study was comprised of 888 consecutive patients. Significance was confirmed as P-value <0.05 Significance was found upon analyzing direct bilirubin for all age groups, total bilirubin for age group less than 15 years, direct bilirubin for 15-20 and 21-30 age groups. Conclusions: Our investigation confirms that bilirubin level might be a biomarker for having appendicitis, it can occasionally differentiate between types of appendicitis, but this is not a sharp ending as it has no role in patients within age groups of above 30 years. However, a problem of specificity is present which hinders the adoption of serum bilirubin as a biomarker foe AA. In addition, several other methods are more specific for the diagnosis and treatment regimen through suitable surgery procedure.