Spectrum and Outcome of Acute Abdomen in Surgery Department of a Mission Hospital

Abstract

Background: Acute abdomen usually refers to a sudden onset severe abdominal pain that requires urgent attention. It is a medical emergency in many cases and significant number requires immediate surgical intervention.
Objective: To evaluate the epidemiology, aetiological pattern and treatment of acute abdomen managed operatively in a mission hospital.
Methodology: This is a three-year retrospective study spanning from January 2014 to December 2016. All the patients that had surgical operation for a preliminary diagnosis of acute abdomen within the study period were recruited into the study. Patient’s demographics including: age, sex, diagnosis, intra-operative findings, operative procedures, complications and outcome were recorded.
Results: A total of 177 surgeries were done for acute abdomen out of 1,908 surgical operations amounting to 9.28% of the total surgeries done during the study period. Patients’ age ranged from 4-85 years with a mean of 33.98±17.57 years; and a male to female ratio of 1.08:1. A total of 83(46.9%) of the patients had appendicitis related diagnosis, 16(9.0%) of the cases resulted from trauma, 25(14.1%) had intestinal obstruction from post-operative bands, 28(15.8%) had intestinal obstruction from colonic tumours and 17(9.6%) had perforated peptic ulcer disease. A total of 12 patients had complications following surgery giving a complication rate of 6.8%. Five patients died giving a mortality rate of 2.8%.
Conclusion: Acute appendicitis and its complications still remained the most common acute abdomen. Mortality rate from acute abdomen is low at 2.8%.

Key words: Abdominal Pain, Aetiological pattern, Morbidity, Mortality.