Acute appendicitis in Yirgalem Hospital, southern Ethiopia

The prevalence of appendicitis shows a marked variation between populations. The aim of this study is to determine the rate of prevalence of acute appendicitis in Yirgalem Hospital, in Southern Ethiopia. A retrospective analysis was undertaken on 200 cases of acute appendicitis surgically managed at Yirgalem Hospital from January 1997 to December 1999. During this period the disease accounted for 27.9% of the operations for acute abdominal emergencies and for 1.1% of total hospital admissions. There were 159 males and 41 females giving a male to female ratio of 3.9:1. The mean age was 25.6 +/- 10.9 years (range 4-90 years). The average duration of illness at presentation and hospital stay were 3.4 +/- 1.7 and 7.1 +/- 5.3 days, respectively. All the cases presented with abdominal pain and a shift of the periumbilical abdominal pain to the right lower quadrant was found in the majority. Right lower quadrant tenderness was the leading physical finding. The rate of simple and perforated appendicitis were 45.5% and 44%, respectively. Thirty-two per cent of the patients had postoperative wound infection. Out of the 200 patients operated upon for acute appendicitis 8 (4%) died. The study showed that the prevalence of acute appendicitis was low in Yirgalem Hospital and the results of the study were compared with those from elsewhere.