During a one-year period, Hong et al. (A-40) studied all patients who presented to the surgical service with possible appendicitis. One hundred eighty-two patients with possible appendicitis were randomized to either clinical assessment (CA) alone or clinical evaluation and abdominal/

pelvic CT. A true-positive case resulted in a laparotomy that revealed a lesion requiring operation.

A true-negative case did not require an operation at one-week follow-up evaluation. At the close of the study, they found no significant difference in the hospital length of stay for the two treatment groups.