Abdominal pain is an extremely common presenting symptom. The pain may be acute (sudden onset) or chronic (lasting for more than a few days or presenting intermittently). It is important to be able to distinguish causes of abdominal pain which need urgent surgery, e.g. ruptured aortic aneurysm, perforated diverticular disease, from those that do not, e.g. biliary colic, ureteric colic, acute pancreatitis. The causes of abdominal pain are legion and the list below contains some of the more common causes but is not intended to be comprehensive.