Of the 16 patients who were excluded from the study, 2 had other concomitant infections, 1 was a repeat patient who had revisited the ED and was taking oral antibiotics for colonic diverticulitis, 6 had an initial ambiguous diagnosis of colonic diverticulitis on CT scans but a final pathological diagnosis of colon cancer and not diverticulitis, 4 had no CRP data, and 3 had no MDW data because their monocyte count was less than 100/μL. This evidence concerns the gene CRP and diverticulitis.