Baseline Evaluation of Lymph Nodes in the Lower Quadrant Young People Using Point of Care Ultrasound (BELLY-POCUS)

Abdominal pain is one of the commonest presentations to the paediatric emergency department. Many children are brought to the PED due to concerns about surgical intra-abdominal pathology such as appendicitis. Mesenteric adenitis is commonly attributed as a cause of the patient's pain but is done so without confirmatory imaging findings and as a diagnosis of exclusion. There is a paucity of evidence pertaining to the sonographic findings of mesenteric adenitis. The investigators aim to categorise the normal appearances using POCUS in patients presenting to the paediatric emergency department without any abdominal or infectious complaint, in order to describe the range of normal lymph node numbers and size present on scan. By defining what's normal, the ultimate aim will be to use POCUS to actively identify abnormalities that diagnose mesenteric adenitis.

NCT Number	NCT07704814
Lead Sponsor	South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust Collaborators: Pediatric Emergency Research in the UK and Ireland (PERUKI)
Conditions	Lymph Nodes
Enrollment	500 participants
Start Date	2026-04-09
Primary Completion	2026-12-01 (estimated)
Study Completion	2026-12-01 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2026-07-17