The contemporary appendectomy for acute uncomplicated appendicitis in children

National, procedure-specific clinical registries are increasingly available in surgery, although data about children have lagged behind. Data related to the surgical management of appendicitis in children have become available recently and can be used to inform patient and family expectations and to identify clinical areas in need of ongoing improvement.

Cases of acute, uncomplicated appendicitis in children (<18 years of age) were extracted from the 2017 pediatric appendectomy-targeted file of the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. Epidemiologic data were generated across 5 domains: (1) patient characteristics/severity, (2) preoperative imaging patterns, (3) characteristics of the operation, (4) pathologic outcomes, and (5) postoperative morbidity and mortality.

The final sample included 9,507 appendectomies for acute, uncomplicated appendicitis performed at 106 hospitals. The population was predominantly male (60.6%), involving children 6 to 12 years of age (55.3%). Only 2.9% of patients did not have imaging before their appendectomy. Overall, 38.2% received a computed tomography; however, patients transferred with imaging received computed tomography at 3.8 times the rate of those with only local (ie, operating hospital) imaging. Laparoscopy was used in 94.6% of cases, with 1.1% converted to open. Negative appendectomy and complication rates were 3.3% and 2.1%, respectively. Children ≤5 years of age had 2.3 greater odds of negative appendectomy than children 6 to 17 years of age.

Children undergoing operation for acute, uncomplicated appendicitis have excellent clinical outcomes, although children ≤5 years of age have an increased risk of negative appendectomy. Despite guidelines against their use, more than one-third of children received a computed tomography before operation, driven predominantly by transferring hospitals.