[Acute abdominal pain. A prospective multicentric study (author's transl)]

Analysis of the information obtained from a data bank on 3 500 cases of acute abdominal pain showed that the most frequent cause was appendicitis. Patients admitted to hospital with painful abdominal syndrome of uncertain aetiology ranked second in frequency. The most common erroneous diagnoses concerned complicated ovarian cysts and urinary tract infections. The present report constitutes the first stage of a French diagnostic aid computer program.