Laparoscopic surgery in acute appendicitis

Abstract

Acute appendicitis as an entity inside the acute abdomen is still one of the main causes of emergency surgical intervention in the surgical services. It can be done with video-laparoscopic surgery, showing this procedure important advances during the last years. Objective: analyzing the results of the video-laparoscopic surgery in treating acute appendicitis. Methods: cross-sectional descriptive study. Context: Emergency Service of the Teaching Military Hospital Dr. Mario Muñoz Monroy. Universe: 38 patients operated by video-laparoscopic surgery in the period from January 2000 to June 2009. Variables: Genre, age, surgical time, diseases conditioning surgical risk, records of previous operations, more frequent complications, kind of operation, conversion causes, hospital staying, and patient's status when discharging. Main results: the most affected genre was the male one (65,7 %); the average age was 34 years; the average surgical time was 35 minutes; the main disease causing risk was the arterial hypertension; 84 % of the patients did not have records of previous operations on the abdomen; there were post-surgery complications in 5,6 %; conversion index was 2,8 %; 94,7 % of the patients had a hospital staying of less than 24 hours; there were no deceases; and in 98% of the operated patients there was pathological clinical correlation.