ABSTRACT
Abdominal pain is the single ‘most frequently mentioned’ complaint among emergency department visits in 1996.1 It is also the fourth most common diagnostic code for patients seen in emergency departments throughout the United States in 2001.2 We prefer to think of the abdomen as ‘Pandora’s box’ due to the multiple different organs within it and the numerous emergent conditions in which they may present. In addition, abdominal emergencies may present regardless of the age of the patient, although they are more frequent in the elderly population. This is in contrast to, say, chest and head emergencies, which occur largely in the adult population.
