Clinical significance of mucosal inflammation of the vermiform appendix

In 942 emergency appendectomies, the clinical data of 77 patients with inflammatory changes confined to the mucosa of the vermiform appendix were compared with data from 622 patients with diffuse acute appendicitis and 243 patients without evidence of inflammation in the appendix. In all cases, routine histologic sections of the specimens were reviewed. Of the 77 patients with mucosal appendiceal inflammation, 50 were female and 50% were under 17 years of age. In several clinical aspects, such as incidence of nausea, vomiting, migration of pain, and localized muscular rigidity, there existed significant differences between patients with mucosal inflammation and patients with diffuse appendicitis. Conversely, no statistically significant differences were found between patients with mucosal inflammation and patients without evident appendiceal inflammation. These results in addition to the frequent finding of histologically indistinguishable changes in appendices removed incidentally suggest that the condition is not responsible for the actual complaint.