Timing of Surgery and Complications of Acute Appendicitis: A Retrospective Study

Introduction: Acute appendicitis (AA) is the most frequent surgical condition of the abdomen during childhood. Its clinical presentation in children under 5 may be atypical and thus causes a delay in diagnosis, which often leads to complications such as perforation and peritonitis. Patients with unperforated AA at hospital admission may have their surgery postponed up to 24 hours while antibiotics are initiated without significant increase in complications, instead of undergoing immediate surgery. Immediate surgery to prevent complications has been questioned. Delaying surgery in patients admitted to hospital with AA has not increased the risk of perforation. Objective: To determine the impact of timing of surgery of patients with AA admitted to our Pediatric Surgery Ward of the Sorocaba Hospital Complex of the Medical Science and Health Faculty (CHS-PUC/SP) on the rate of complications (perforation, peritoneal drainage and infection of the surgical wound). Methods: We reviewed the records of 195 children aged 4 to 12 years, admitted between 2010 and 2014. They were separated in 2 groups according to timing of surgery under 7 hours (group A) and 7 to 24 hours (group B) and had their rate of complications (infection of the surgical wound, drainage and perforation (grade IV) assessed. Results: Ninety-seven children underwent surgery less than 7 hours after admission (group A) and 98 children were operated between 7 and 24 hours after admission (group B). Groups A and B had no significant difference regarding the rates of wound infection (p = 0.2277), peritoneal drain insertion (p = 0.4085) or perforation (p = 0.7125). Conclusions: In our study, timing of surgery for AA had no impact on the occurrence of complications, such as infection of the surgical wound, peritoneal drainage or perforation. How to cite this paper: Galletti, R.P., Fernandes, V.O., Novo, N.F. and França, W.M. (2019) Timing of Surgery and Complications of Acute Appendicitis: A Retrospective Study. Surgical Science, 10, 147-153. https://doi.org/10.4236/ss.2019.105018 Received: April 5, 2019 Accepted: May 17, 2019 Published: May 20, 2019 Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access R. P. Galletti et al. DOI: 10.4236/ss.2019.105018 148 Surgical Science

Introduction: Acute appendicitis (AA) is the most frequent surgical condition of the abdomen during childhood. Its clinical presentation in children under 5 may be atypical and thus causes a delay in diagnosis, which often leads to complications such as perforation and peritonitis. Patients with unperforated AA at hospital admission may have their surgery postponed up to 24 hours while antibiotics are initiated without significant increase in complications, instead of undergoing immediate surgery. Immediate surgery to prevent complications has been questioned. Delaying surgery in patients admitted to hospital with AA has not increased the risk of perforation. Objective: To determine the impact of timing of surgery of patients with AA admitted to our Pediatric Surgery Ward of the Sorocaba Hospital Complex of the Medical Science and Health Faculty (CHS-PUC/SP) on the rate of complications (perforation, peritoneal drainage and infection of the surgical wound). Methods: We reviewed the records of 195 children aged 4 to 12 years, admitted between 2010 and 2014. They were separated in 2 groups according to timing of surgery under 7 hours (group A) and 7 to 24 hours (group B) and had their rate of complications (infection of the surgical wound, drainage and perforation (grade IV) assessed. Results: Ninety-seven children underwent surgery less than 7 hours after admission (group A) and 98 children were operated between 7 and 24 hours after admission (group B). Groups A and B had no significant difference regarding the rates of wound infection (p = 0.2277), peritoneal drain insertion (p = 0.4085) or perforation (p = 0.7125). Conclusions: In our study, timing of surgery for AA had no impact on the occurrence of complications, such as infection of the surgical wound, peritoneal drainage or perforation.

Introduction
Acute appendicitis is the most frequent surgical condition of the abdomen in childhood. Children under 5 years of age may have AA with a typical clinical presentation which causes a delay in diagnosis that often leads to increased rates of complications, such as appendix perforation and peritonitis (82% of the cases), and increases both morbidity and mortality rates in this age group [1].
Recent studies have compared the efficacy of antimicrobial therapy with multiple drugs (ampicillin, clindamycin and gentamicin) or single drugs (piperacillin/tazobactam) in preventing post-operative complications and reducing costs [2] [3].
According to Pérez-Martinez et al., 2005, although uncomplicated AA may still be considered an emergency, delaying surgery up to 18 hours after hospital admission does not increase the rate of complications [4]. Similarly, a study by Henry et al., 2007, has shown that non-surgical management of perforated AA was associated with low rates of complications and shorter hospitalization, when compared to matched controls [5]. Yardeni et al. (2004), recommended that in non-perforated AA, antibiotic treatment should be initiated when surgery is delayed 2 to 6 hours after admission. That way, surgery may be postponed within 24 hours of admission with no significant increase in complications, duration of surgery and hospitalization [6].
More recently, the benefits of immediate surgery for AA have been questioned. Teixeira et al. (2012), have shown that in patients with non-perforated AA, delaying surgery significantly increased the rate of surgical wound infection but not the risk of perforation [7].
Other authors have studied the role of prolonged timing of hospital arrival and delayed surgery after admission as independent predictive factors of complications such as perforation [8]. Some authors suggest that tachycardia at admission in patients with AA may be significant as a predictive factor of higher risk of perforation [8].
InAA patients who are treated conventionally, time seems to be the most important element in AA progression towards complete obstruction and perforation [9]. Patients at higher risk of perforation may undergo surgery sooner or receive pre-operative antimicrobial therapy. But it appears most likely that perforation occurs before hospital admission and is not time-dependent [9].
Other researchers have reported no significant increases in the rate of perforation and infection of the surgical wound when appendectomy was delayed. However, a higher risk of wound infection was associated with prolonged duration of

Methods
We studied the hospital records of 195 children aged 4 -12 years, admitted to    In other to study all those nominal data and compare them between the groups it will be used Chi-square test and adopted level of significance of 5% (p < 0.05).

Results
One hundred and ninety-five patients had their hospital records analyzed for this study. (24.6%) had undergone appendectomy within 7 hours and 43 (22%) had undergone appendectomy after 7 hours or more (Table 2).
Chi-square analysis of these data showed no significant differences between different AA stages (p = 0.7125).
Complications such as intrabdominal abscess emerged in 25 patients of group A (25.77%), and in 18 patients in group B (18.36%), as shown in Table 3. In the group A 34 (35.55%) patients needed peritoneal drainage whereas 41 (41.83%) in group B. Chi-square analysis showed no significant difference between the groups (p = 0.4085) ( Table 3).
Chi-square analysis showed no significant difference between both groups regarding the analyzed variable (surgical wound infection), with p = 0.2277.

Discussion
In patients with acute appendicitis, timing of surgery does not seem to increase the risk of complications like perforation and wound infection [1] [2]. Employing medical imaging techniques such as ultrasound and computed tomography may be valuable to perform an early diagnosis and to guide treatment in order to prevent complications, regardless of the timing of surgery [2] [3]. Acute appendicitis, even when uncomplicated, is still considered an emergency, though some authors have reported that postponing surgery up to 18 hours after admission does not increase the rate of complications [4] [5]. The same was concluded by Yardeni et al. (2004), that showed no significant difference regarding length of hospital stay, hospitalization costs and rate of perforation between children submitted to appendectomy within 6 hours of admission (n = 38) and those who had undergone surgery after that period of admission [6] [7].
Despite conventional treatment of AA suggests that time could be the most important factor in the progression of AA towards complications such as perforation without immediate intervention, it seems to happen more likely before hospital admission and is in fact not related to timing [9].
At first glance, timing of patients' referral from different levels of assistance and other nearby cities to our Emergency Room as well as timing of surgery after admission in the Pediatric ward could play an important role in the increased rate of morbidity and complications such as perforation and surgical wound infection [10] [12] [13]. Li J et al. (2019), suggested that "delay did not increase the risk of complicated appendicitis but was associated with a slightly increased risk of surgical site infection" [17]. The results of the present study are consistent with previous studies described.
We found no significant difference between groups A and B regarding the occurrence of post-operative complications, such as surgical wound infection (p = 0.2277), the need of peritoneal drainage (p = 0.4085) or AA stage IV (perforation; p = 0.7125).

Conclusion
Variations in timing of surgery for AA led to no significant differences on the development of complications such as surgical wound infection, peritoneal drain insertion or perforation between the two groups.