Dear Editor,

I have read the article titled “The role of general surgeon performed abdominal ultrasonography in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis” written by Taş et al.1 published in Turkish Journal of Colorectal Disease with great interest. In this study the patients diagnosed and followed up for acute appendicitis were grouped into three groups. In the first group (n=26) an ultrasonography was not used in the diagnosis and the rate of correct diagnosis decreased by 80%. In the second group (n=19) an ultrasonography was performed by the surgeon and the rate of correct diagnosis was reported as 94%. In the third group (n=21) ultrasonography was performed by the radiologist and rate of correct diagnosis was reported as 84%. The rate of correct diagnosis was found to be higher in second group. The low number of patients was acknowledged as a limiting factor in the manuscript. However in the discussion the authors argue that an ultrasonography performed by a general surgeon (for an appendicitis) could have a higher diagnostic accuracy compared one that is performed by a radiologist. I personally think that this situation is incorrect. Because obtaining a diagnostic accuracy higher than a radiologist’s ultrasonography cannot be explained scientifically. A similar/equal rate of diagnostic accuracy between a radiologist and a surgeon can be found. This has also been shown in previous studies. However the higher rate of diagnostic accuracy found in cases of general surgeon performed ultrasonography should be explained by limited number of patients. Or it should be associated with the fact that ultrasonography is an examiner dependent technique. The comment in this paper can cause ethical conflicts.