Fig 1.
Sonographic images of appendices from 8 years old female patients without inflammation, with uncomplicated and with complicated appendicitis; cross and longitudinal sections, respective maximum diameters [mm].
Fig 2.
Illustration of development and validation of biomarker signatures.
Table 1.
Numbers and characteristics of patients for development of specific biomarker signatures: Diagnosis of acute appendicitis.
Table 2.
Numbers and characteristics of patients for development of specific biomarker signatures: Detection of complicated appendicitis.
Fig 3.
a: analysis of the predictive capacity for discrimination between appendicitis and normal appendix (biomarker signature vs. conventional values CRP, neutrophils, leukocytes and appendiceal diameter). b and c: best cut-off biomarker signature vs. respective sensitivities (b) and specificities (c) of conventional lab values. d: analysis of the diagnostic capacity for discrimination between complicated and uncomplicated appendicitis (biomarker signature vs. conventional values CRP, neutrophils and leukocytes). e and f: best cut-off biomarker signature vs. respective sensitivities (e) and specificities (f) of conventional values. AUCs and accuracies are shown in Tables 3 and 4.
Table 3.
Areas under the curve (AUC) of ROC curve shown in Fig 3A; accuracies of biomarker signatures and of conventional single markers with respect to sensitivity and specificity levels at selected points for diagnosis of an acute appendicitis with the biomarker signature (sensitivity 0.93, specificity 0.67; Fig 3A–3C).
Table 4.
Areas under the curve (AUC) of ROC curve shown in Fig 3D; accuracies of biomarker signatures and of conventional single markers with respect to sensitivity and specificity levels at selected points for differentiation from complicated appendicitis with the biomarker signature (sensitivity 0.95, specificity 0.33; Figs d-f).