Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Appendicitis is one of the most common acquired surgical conditions of childhood.  Diagnosis of appendicitis remains difficult.  Much work has been done on validation of clinical scores to reduce the number of unnecessary surgeries and radiographic tests while maintaining a high sensitivity for disease.  However, no score performs well enough in practice to reduce these risks (Kulik et al., 2013).  It is also known that appendicitis has a familial predominance, but little is known about the genetic factors that may increase a certain child's risk for the condition (Oldmeadow et al., 2009).