Appendicitis can be tricky to diagnose in kids – even with improved imaging technologies, as many as 30 percent undergo needless surgery to remove what turns out to be a healthy appendix. On the flip side, 30 to 45 percent don’t have the condition detected until their appendix bursts. Now, teaming up with the Proteomics Center at Children’s Hospital Boston, emergency physicians at Children’s have identified a “biomarker” for appendicitis that can be picked up with a urine test. “Diagnosis could potentially be down to minutes, and not hours,” proteomics director Hanno Steen, PhD, told Time. This study is a great example of “better living through proteomics” – one of many expected in the future at Children’s.
Read more in our press release, or get the full report from the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
