BACKGROUND Acute appendicitis is one of the most common surgical emergencies in the West. A large body of research is investigating the risk factors for disease and perforation. As South Africa has a social environment, health system structure, and population demography unique from developed nations, the findings may not be generalisable to this setting. A systematic review has not been perform...

the goal of this prospective study was to determine die prevalence of certain surgical findings in iranian patients with appendicitis in one of our surgical centers, including: position of the appendix, rate of true appendicitis, perforation, and peritonitis. duplication was observed in 4%, surface exudate in 52%, gangrenous necrosis in 27%, swelling in 79%, appendix in the left lower quadrant ...

A rapid and reliable test for detection of complicated appendicitis would be useful when deciding whether emergency surgery is required. We investigated the clinical usefulness of procalcitonin for identifying acute complicated appendicitis. We retrospectively analyzed 63 patients aged ≥15 years who underwent appendectomy without receiving antibiotics before admission and had preoperative data ...

BACKGROUND Appendicitis is a common diagnosis, but is by no means a simple one to establish. It is impractical to have a definitive preoperative diagnosis, which leads to an appreciable rate of negative appendicectomy as reported in world literature varying from 20-40% with its morbidity around 10%. This retrospective study investigated the value of clinical assessment and medical imaging (ultr...

Appendicitis is an inflammatory disease caused by obstruction of the appendiceal lumen. It represents one of the most common abdominal pathologies in clinical practice. Appendicitis has a well-defined range of signs and symptoms but is harder to diagnose in elderly patients because of less specific symptomatology, a wide differential diagnosis, and communication problems. The perforation rate i...

Background. The incidence of perforated appendicitis in elderly patients is high and carries increased morbidity and mortality rates. The aim of this study was to identify risk factors of perforation in elderly patients who presented with clinical of acute appendicitis. Methods. This was a retrospective study, reviewing medical records of patients over the age of 60 years who had a confirmed di...

The widespread use of contrast radiography has made it easier to diagnose and treat many abdominal conditions in both children and adults. Apart from barium, other contrast media such as Gastrografin, clear fluids such as saline and Hartman's solution and even tap water and air have all been employed as contrast, with good results. Contrast enemas play an important role in the diagnosis of abdo...

Perforation of the colonic diverticulum is a common reason for emergency laparotomy, especially in older people but is rare in the younger population. While perforation of the sigmoid diverticulum is very common, perforation of the ascending colonic diverticulum is a very rare event. For this reason, the divereticulitis is usually discovered unexpectedly at surgery for suspected appendicitis.

Infections and their complications requiring surgical intervention are a frequent presentation in African children. Surgical site infection (SSI) is common with rates over 20%, even after clean procedures. The high rates of SSI are due in part to lack of infection control and surveillance policies in most hospitals in Africa. SSI is attended by complications, long hospital stay, and some mortal...

BACKGROUND Acute abdominal conditions are a common reason for emergency admission of children. Little is available in the literature about such conditions in our subregion, especially Ghana. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate the range of emergency abdominal surgical conditions amongst children in the subregion, with particular reference to Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kuma...