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A negative Murphy’s sign means that a person can breathe comfortably during this hand pressure, which may point to a different health problem, such as ascending cholangitis.
In medicine, Murphy's sign (also known as Sweeney’s sign) is a maneuver during a physical examination as part of the abdominal examination. [1] It is useful for differentiating pain in the right upper quadrant. Typically, it is positive in cholecystitis, but negative in choledocholithiasis, pyelonephritis, and ascending cholangitis.
Murphy's sign is a valuable clinical test used to assess patients presenting with upper right quadrant pain to determine the likelihood of acute cholecystitis. This article provides an overview of the indications for performing Murphy's sign, the technique, interpretation of results, diagnostic accuracy, and considerations for older patients.
On physical examination, the presence of a positive Murphy sign (arrest of inspiration during palpation of the right upper quadrant) is very suggestive of AC, with a specificity of 87% to 97% [29,30]. Clinicians can also observe tenderness, pain, or a palpable mass in the right upper quadrant .
Murphy's sign is a physical examination technique used to diagnose acute cholecystitis, which is inflammation of the gallbladder and it was first described an American physician John Benjamin Murphy (1857–1916) in the 1880s.
A positive Murphy's sign on physical examination supports the diagnosis. In most cases, the diagnosis can be established with an abdominal ultrasound or a cholescintigraphy if the ultrasound is equivocal. (See "Acute calculous cholecystitis: Clinical features and diagnosis".)
The classic Murphy's sign (abrupt interruption of deep inspiration) is elicited by palpation of the gallbladder area. A palpable mass caused by inflammation and adherent omentum is...