Material and methods:

Retrospective, cross-sectional, descriptive study in which patients who underwent an appendectomy were included. All criteria were applied prior to a surgical event: 1) appendicular mass, 2) non-visualization of appendix, 3) delay of admission > 3 days and 4) CRP > 10 mg/dL.

Results:

A total sample of 57 patients. It was divided into two groups. Group 1 (n = 14) patients with at least one positive predictive criterion and group 2 (n = 43) without any positive criteria, showed significant difference in the presence of complications, days of in-hospital stay and surgical conversion. COR curves to demonstrate the discriminative ability of the predictive criteria, were reasonable (AUC = 0.732, CI95% = 0.57-0.84) for days of in-hospital stay, with a sensitivity and specificity of 46.7 and 83.3%.

Conclusions:

Finding negative criteria can be a useful tool in making decisions between using laparoscopy or open surgery, as this will determine, secondarily, the intraoperative difficulty, as well as postoperative evolution.