Aim: The initial diagnostics of acute diverticulitis of the sigmoid should render the correct diagnosis as well as assisting in the decision on the options of conservative or surgical treatment by ruling out or demonstrating complications. At present, sonography or computed tomography (CT) are the two competing diagnostic options. This study was designed to demonstrate that sonography could be used as the method of choice.
Method: 63 patients with clinical suspicion of acute diverticulitis of the sigmoid were examined initially by sonography or CT in a prospective study.
Results: Sonography and CT showed a 97 % sensitivity and specificity for reaching the accurate and clinically plausible diagnosis. As to the demonstration of complications of the disease, sensitivity and specificity were comparably high for both diagnostic methods.
Conclusions: Sonography can compete with the more complex CT examination and therefore represents the recommended primary diagnostic procedure.