Purpose : Acute appendicitis still remains one of the most common causes of childhood abdominal surgery. Despite of the development of modern diagnostic tools, it presents more serious problems than in adults due to the higher perforation rate.
Methods : In our hospital, 5-year term clinical reviews have been performed, over the last 2 decades to see if there were any changing tendencies of this disease entity. We reviewed 186 cases of child acute appendicitis between January 1997 and December 2001.
Results : The results were as follows: 1) The male to female ratio was 1.35 : 1. 2) The peak incidence occured in the 11 to 15 years old age group. 3) The overall perforation rate was 24.7%, which was decreased compared with 34.7% of our previous study (P<0.05, Odd ratio=0.60). 4) The negative exploration rate was 8.06%. 5) The overall complication rate were 2.85% and 32.6% in non-perforated and perforated cases, respectively.
Conclusion : In conclusion, the incidence of acute appendicitis were shown to be almost the same as for the previous decade, but the perforation rate had dropped, maybe due to the early intervention, and advances in the diagnostic tools. (J Korean Surg Soc 2003;65:157-163)
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