[Appendicitis from an epidemiological viewpoint]

A general CDR-wide account is given in this paper of hospitalised treatment, frequent of operations, and lethality of appendicitis. Hospitalised treatment declined from 97.208 to 52.814 cases, i.e. by 46 percent, between 1971 and 1988. In 1988, ratios were 30.7 top 10,000 males and 32.7 to 10,000 females. The ratio of surgery was 21 to 10,000, with declining trend. Hence, about one third of all hospitalised patients were cases for observation rather than treatment. The decline has been attributable to more stringent criteria for surgery. Decline in frequency of operations has been accompanied by reduction in lethality and mortality. Overall lethality of acute forms of appendicitis has been 0.4 percent in 1988, which was primarily attributable to improvement of therapeutic methods. The mortality rate to 10,000 inhabitants is 0.15.