Publication:

Study of acute appendicitis among surgery inpatients of a secondary care hospital

Background Pain in abdomen is one of the most common symptoms which patients presented at emergency department, which seeks urgent medical attention and treatment. Acute appendicitis is one among the predominant acute abdominal surgical emergency. This condition may be associated with complications and significant rise in morbidity and even mortality if there is a delayed diagnosis and treatment.

Methods This was a hospital based descriptive study of the patients admitted in the department of General Surgery of JSS Hospital, Chamarajanagar, between June 2017 and August 2019, with clinically diagnosed acute appendicitis, which was confirmed on ultrasonography, postoperatively confirmed by histopathology.

Results The present study showed that acute appendicitis was most common among the age group of 11-30 years (57.3%) and more among the males (58.8%). The surgery done for acute appendicitis was open appendectomy, done for 82.4% of the cases, 16.2% of the cases required laparotomy with peritoneal lavage and drainage, due to abscess formation, perforation and associated small bowel perforation.

Conclusions The most common age group affected with appendicitis in our study was 11-30 years. The most common intra operative finding was inflamed appendix, which showed that simple appendicitis is more common than complicated appendicitis in our study and appendectomy is the preferred surgery for acute appendicitis.