@article{ATM11629,
author = {Gianfranco Cervellin and Riccardo Mora and Andrea Ticinesi and Tiziana Meschi and Ivan Comelli and Fausto Catena and Giuseppe Lippi},
title = {Epidemiology and outcomes of acute abdominal pain in a large urban Emergency Department: retrospective analysis of 5,340 cases},
journal = {Annals of Translational Medicine},
volume = {4},
number = {19},
year = {2016},
keywords = {},
abstract = {Background: Acute abdominal pain (AAP) accounts for 7–10% of all Emergency Department (ED) visits. Nevertheless, the epidemiology of AAP in the ED is scarcely known. The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiology and the outcomes of AAP in an adult population admitted to an urban ED.
Methods: We made a retrospective analysis of all records of ED visits for AAP during the year 2014. All the patients with repeated ED admissions for AAP within 5 and 30 days were scrutinized. Five thousand three hundred and forty cases of AAP were analyzed.
Results: The mean age was 49 years. The most frequent causes were nonspecific abdominal pain (NSAP) (31.46%), and renal colic (31.18%). Biliary colic/cholecystitis, and diverticulitis were more prevalent in patients aged >65 years (13.17% vs. 5.95%, and 7.28% vs. 2.47%, respectively). Appendicitis (i.e., 4.54% vs. 1.47%) and renal colic (34.48% vs. 20.84%) were more frequent in patients aged 60% of all causes. A large use of active clinical observations during ED stay (52% of our patients) lead to a negligible percentage of changing diagnosis at the second visit.},
issn = {2305-5847}, url = {https://atm.amegroups.org/article/view/11629}
}