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Aim: To determine whether epiploic appendagitis occurs in the caecum. Methods: From 2000–2006, 58 cases with classic computed tomography (CT) features of acute epiploic appendagitis (focal round or oval fat density immediately adjacent to the colon with surrounding oedema and stranding, with or without a central area of high attenuation) were identified from a radiology information system and available for review on the picture archiving and communication system (PACS). Cases were assigned to one of six colonic segments: rectum, sigmoid, descending colon, transverse colon, ascending colon, and caecum. The Blyth–Still–Casella procedure was used to derive an exact upper bound on the likelihood of epiploic appendagitis occurring within the caecum. Results: Twenty-eight cases occurred in the sigmoid colon, 16 in the descending colon, four in the transverse colon, and 10 in the ascending colon. No cases of acute epiploic appendagitis were identified in the caecum. Four cases of prospectively dictated caecal epiploic appendagitis were identified from the database. Retrospective review of these cases showed two cases to be epiploic appendagitis of the ascending colon. The third case demonstrated peritoneal thickening without evidence of an inflamed epiploic appendage. The fourth case was caecal diverticulitis. Based on these findings there is 95% confidence that no more than 4.6% of patients with epiploic appendagitis will show this condition within the caecum. Conclusion: In the authors'' experience, epiploic appendagitis does not occur in the caecum. Therefore, it is an unlikely cause for an inflammatory process in this region and other conditions should be considered. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in both men and women and it was estimated that in 2003 nearly 150,000 cases would be diagnosed and 57,000 people would die. Screening has been accepted as a means for early detection of the disease, yet only a portion of the eligible population undergoes colorectal cancer screening, partially due to comfort issues of undergoing a full colonoscopic examination. Virtual colonoscopy (VC) has been demonstrated to be an effective means of performing screening and given the number of people who are candidate for screening better tools, such as Computer Aided Detection (CAD), are required to fulfill this increasing need. The developed CAD system, presented in this paper, has focused on the detection of polyps of sizes up to and including 20 mm. The results have demonstrated that: the developed algorithm generalizes, the sensitivity and specificity for middle- to large-sized polyps is on the average 95% while the overall sensitivity is roughly 88% and the false positive has remained at a manageable 4 per volume. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]