[Clinical experience of early percutaneous drainage of amebic hepatic abscess]

Amebic hepatic abscesses are a frequent illness in Mexico, where these are different from those of the rest of the world. The treatment that we use should also be different. We propose new indications for percutaneous drainage in this pathology. In our hospital we found a high incidence in laparotomies, morbidity and lengthy hospitalization for this illness.

We studied 29 cases of hepatic abscesses treated at our hospital from January 2002 to May 2004. Patients received the conventional treatment and we compared this group with another group of 22 patients who had drainage before 48 h of hospitalization, during the period from June 2004 to August 2005.

Both groups showed similar characteristics. The first group was drained only in 13.79% of cases, the second in 100%. In the first group, 44.82% had surgery and in the second group 4.5% had surgery. Length of hospitalization in the first group was 11.96 days and in the second, 4.76 days.

We still have no clear indications of when to opportunely drain a hepatic abscess.