Demographic and Epidemiologic Features of Acute Appendicitis

Acute Appendicitis (AA) is the most commonly encountered disease in emergency clinics, with about 250,000 cases of appendicitis reported in The United States and 40,000 in England each year (Deng et al., 2010; Simpson et al., 2008). The key form of treatment for the disease is surgery and the mortality, morbidity, and economic cost ratio rise the longer it remains untreated. Despite the high prevalence of the disease, the uncertainty of just how many appendicitis patients will present to emergency clinics each day still remains an unpredictable situation for us surgeons, with some days bringing a large number of cases, and others relatively few. Ever since Amyand Claudius performed the first appendectomy in 1735 at St George's Hospital in London, this decrease and increase in cases has led researchers to conduct studies into both the etiology of AA and the disease’s epidemiological and demographic characteristics. The etiology of AA has, as of yet, not been clarified. Clarification of the etiology has been the main point of epidemiological studies and advancements in this area will influence the incidence of the disorder as well. There are various theories on the frequency and incidence of appendicitis at present and these are still debated, despite some having strong scientific backing.