[Diagnostic work-up of abdominal pain by the family doctor: an avertable potentially threatening situation must be excluded].

When patients attend the physician's office with acute abdominal pain, the doctor must first exclude a potentially dangerous condition (acute abdomen) before initiating symptomatic treatment (e. g. painkilling drugs). The need for this is based in the first instance on the presence of severe complaints in combination with the absence of a plausible explanation for the patient's distress, as well as, secondarily, the anxiety of the patient or the person accompanying him, or even the doctor's own anxiety about possibly overlooking a serious pathology.