Abstract

BACKGROUND:

To retrospectively evaluate the diagnostic performance and clinical utility of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in pregnant patients suspected of having acute appendicitis, when an ultrasound study generated an inconclusive result.

METHODS:

The medical records of 19 consecutive women who underwent abdominal and pelvic MRI at a tertiary care referral center (St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, Canada), as part of the work up of clinically suspected acute appendicitis, were retrospectively reviewed. MRI was carried out when ultrasound findings were inconclusive. MRI findings were reviewed and compared with surgical findings and clinical follow-up data including pregnancy outcome.

RESULTS:

One of the 19 patients (5.3%) in the study cohort had an appendicitis diagnosed by MRI that was confirmed at operation and by specimen histology. The remaining study patients were diagnosed as not having appendicitis by MRI. These patients were followed until delivery, which was uneventful for all but one patient who was found to have appendicitis during Cesarean section. Overall, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of MRI for the diagnosis of appendicitis during pregnancy was 50.0%, 100%, 100%, 94.4%, and 94.7%, respectively. In three patients (16.7%) with no MRI evidence of appendicitis, MRI identified an alternative etiology for their abdominal pain (two patients diagnosed with ovarian cysts, one patient diagnosed with a uterine fibroid).

CONCLUSIONS:

MRI represents a useful diagnostic test for acute appendicitis in pregnant women, and decreases the need for an emergency operation. Its high negative predictive value makes MRI useful for ruling out appendicitis in pregnant patients who have an inconclusive ultrasound. However, the low sensitivity observed in this study suggests that MRI, like other imaging modalities, is not perfect, and may miss an acute appendicitis diagnosis. Thus, future prospective clinical study of MRI as a diagnostic test for the evaluation of women who present with acute abdominal pain and possible appendicitis during pregnancy is warranted.