Inmedicine,Murphy's sign (also known asSweeney’s sign) is a maneuver during aphysical examination as part of theabdominal examination.^[1] It is useful fordifferentiatingpain in theright upper quadrant. Typically, it is positive incholecystitis, but negative incholedocholithiasis,pyelonephritis, andascending cholangitis.

Classically, Murphy's sign is tested for during anabdominal examination in supine position; it is performed by asking the patient to breathe out and then gently placing the hand below thecostal margin on the right side at the mid-clavicular line (the approximate location of thegallbladder). The patient is then instructed to breathe in. Normally, during inspiration, theabdominal contents are pushed downward as thediaphragm moves down (andlungs expand). If the patient stops breathing in (as the gallbladder istender and, in moving downward, comes in contact with the examiner's fingers) and winces with a "catch" in breath, the test is considered positive. In order for the test to be considered negative, the same maneuver must not elicit pain when performed on the left side.^{[citation needed]}

Murphy's sign has a highsensitivity andnegative predictive value, although thespecificity is not high.^[2] However, in the elderly the sensitivity is markedly lower; a negative Murphy's sign in an elderly person is not useful for ruling out cholecystitis if other tests and the clinical history suggest the diagnosis.^[3]

The sign is named after AmericanphysicianJohn Benjamin Murphy (1857–1916), a Chicago surgeon from the 1880s to the early 1900s, who first described the hypersensitivity to deep palpation in the subcostal area when a patient with gallbladder disease takes a deep breath.^{[citation needed]}

• Courvoisier's law – when the gallbladder is palpable, painlessjaundice is unlikely to be related togallstones.
• Murphy's triad

• "Cholecystitis acute".Medcyclopaedia.GE. Archived fromthe original on 2012-02-05.