Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Point-of-care ultrasound (US) has been suggested as the primary imaging in evaluating patients with suspected diverticulitis. Discrimination between simple and complicated diverticulitis may help to expedite emergent surgical consults and determine the risk of complications. This study aimed to: (1) determine the accuracy of an US protocol (TICS) for diagnosing diverticulitis in the emergency department (ED) setting and (2) assess the ability of TICS to distinguish between simple and complicated diverticulitis. ⋯ In ED patients with suspected diverticulitis, US demonstrated high accuracy in ruling out or diagnosing diverticulitis, but its reliability in differentiating complicated from simple diverticulitis is unsatisfactory.