Prompt or delayed appendectomy? Influence of timing of surgery for acute appendicitis

Safety of Short, In-Hospital Delays Before Surgery for Acute Appendicitis

OBJECTIVE

To determine safety of short in-hospital delays before appendicectomy.

BACKGROUND

Short organizational delays before appendicectomy may safely improve provision of acute surgical services.

METHODS

The primary endpoint was the rate of complex appendicitis (perforation, gangrene, and/or abscess). The main explanatory variable was timing of surgery, using less than 12 hours from admission as the reference. The first part of this study analyzed primary data from a multicentre study on appendicectomy from 95 centers. The second part combined this data with a systematic review and meta-analysis of published data.

RESULTS

The cohort study included 2510 patients with acute appendicitis, of whom 812 (32.4%) had complex findings. Adjusted multivariable binary regression modelling showed that timing of operation was not related to risk of complex appendicitis [12-24 hours odds ratio (OR) 0.98 (P = 0.869); 24-48 hours OR 0.88 (P = 0.329); 48+ hours OR 0.82 (P = 0.317)]. However, after 48 hours, the risk of surgical site infection and 30-day adverse events both increased [adjusted ORs 2.24 (P = 0.039) and 1.71 (P = 0.024), respectively]. Meta-analysis of 11 nonrandomized studies (8858 patients) revealed that delay of 12 to 24 hours after admission did not increase the risk of complex appendicitis (OR 0.97, P = 0.750).

CONCLUSIONS

Short delays of less than 24 hours before appendicectomy were not associated with increased rates of complex pathology in selected patients. These organizational delays may aid service provision, but planned delay beyond this should be avoided. However, where optimal surgical systems allow for expeditious surgery, prompt appendicectomy will still aid fastest resolution of pain for the individual patient.

Delayed appendectomy versus early appendectomy in the treatment of acute appendicitis: a retrospective study

Background

The controversy still exists about the timing of operation for appendicitis. The aim of this study was to compare the outcomes between early appendectomy and delayed appendectomy and assess the feasibility of delayed operation.

Methods

The medical records of patients with acute appendicitis who received operation between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011, were retrospectively reviewed. Outcome measures were white blood cell (WBC) count at postoperative first day, time to soft diet, complication rate, surgical site infection (SSI) rate, length of hospital stay, and readmission within 30 days.

Results

During the study period, a total of 478 patients underwent appendectomies, and 145 patients were excluded, leaving 333 who met inclusion criteria. Based on the time from arrival at hospital to incision, they were divided into two groups: 177 (53.2%) in group A and 156 (46.8%) in group B. There were no significant differences in preoperative demographics and clinical data between two groups. The mean WBC count at postoperative first day of group B were lower than that of group A (p = 0.0039). There were no significant differences in time to soft diet, length of postoperative hospital stay, complication rate, and readmission rate between two groups. SSI including intra-abdominal abscess was also shown no significant difference (Group A, 1.7% and Group B, 3.9%; p = 0.3143).

Conclusions

This study revealed that delayed appendectomy was safe and feasible for adult patient although the clinical outcomes of delayed appendectomy were not superior to those of early appendectomy. We suggest that surgeons would decide the appropriate timing of appendectomy with consideration other situations such as available hospital resources.

Development and validation of the Calculation of post-Operative Risk in Emergency Surgery (CORES) model

PURPOSE

This study was undertaken to establish a model to predict the post-operative mortality for emergency surgeries.

METHODS

A regression model was constructed to predict in-hospital mortality using data from a cohort of 479 cases of emergency surgery performed in a Japanese referral hospital. The discrimination power of the current model termed the Calculation of post-Operative Risk in Emergency Surgery (CORES), and Portsmouth modification of the Physiological and Operative Severity Score for the enUmeration of Mortality and morbidity (P-POSSUM) were validated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) in another cohort of 494 cases in the same hospital (validation subset). We further evaluated the accuracy of the CORES in a cohort of 1,471 cases in six hospitals (multicenter subset).

RESULTS

CORES requires only five preoperative variables, while the P-POSSUM requires 20 variables. In the validation subset, the CORES model had a similar discrimination power as the P-POSSUM for detecting in-hospital mortality (AUC, 95 % CI for CORES: 0.86, 0.80-0.93; for P-POSSUM: 0.88, 0.82-0.93). The predicted mortality rates of the CORES model significantly correlated with the severity of the post-operative complications. The subsequent multicenter study also demonstrated that the CORES model exhibited a high AUC value (0.85: 0.81-0.89) and a significant correlation with the post-operative morbidity.

CONCLUSIONS

This model for emergency surgery, the CORES, demonstrated a similar discriminatory power to the P-POSSUM in predicting post-operative mortality. However, the CORES model has a substantial advantage over the P-POSSUM in that it utilizes far fewer variables.