children s health issues
Appendicitis in Children
Treatment of Appendicitis
Appendectomy Antibiotics by vein The best treatment for appendicitis is surgical removal of the inflamed appendix (appendectomy). Before surgery, doctors give antibiotics by vein, which decreases the risk of complications. Appendicitis can sometimes be treated successfully with only antibiotics, but even if antibiotic treatment is successful at first, children sometimes develop appendicitis again. Therefore, surgical removal of the appendix is generally the recommended treatment for appendicitis. Appendectomy is fairly simple and safe, requiring a hospital stay of 1 to 2 days in children who have no complications, such as a ruptured appendix. If the appendix has ruptured, the doctor removes it and may wash out the abdomen with fluid, give antibiotics for several days, and watch for complications, such as infection and bowel blockage. Children who have a ruptured appendix typically need to stay longer in the hospital. About 15% of the time, surgeons discover a normal appendix while doing an appendectomy. This is because there are no methods that are 100% accurate for diagnosing appendicitis before surgery. Because of the potential life-threatening consequences of appendicitis, proceeding with surgery is considered worth the tradeoff of sometimes doing surgery and finding that the appendix is normal. When this occurs, the surgeon looks in the abdomen for another cause of the pain and treats it if possible. Usually, the doctor removes the appendix, even if it appears normal, because it does not serve any function and removing it will also prevent children from needing an additional surgery if they develop appendicitis in the future. 