Chapter 26 PELVIC PAIN: ACUTE
Acute pelvic pain is pain felt in the pelvic area for less than 48 hours. It can be difficult to make the diagnosis on the basis of history and physical examination alone, because acute pelvic pain can have gynecologic, obstetric, urologic, musculoskeletal, or gastrointestinal causes. When a patient with acute pelvic pain initially presents for evaluation, it is important to quickly determine whether the patient is pregnant and whether the patient has a surgical emergency.
