Appendicitis surgery
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Appendicitis Microchapters |
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Appendicitis On the Web |
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American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Appendicitis |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Pre-Operation Preparations
- The treatment begins by keeping the patient from eating or drinking anything, even water, in preparation for surgery.
- An intravenous drip is used to hydrate the patient.
Surgical Procedure
- If the stomach is empty (no food in the past six hours) general anaesthesia is usually used. Otherwise, spinal anaesthesia may be used.
- There are two types of surgeries used to treat appendicitis: Open and laparoscopic appendectomies
Open
- In open procedures, a relatively large incision is made in the abdomen and the appendix is surgically removed in an open abdomen.
Laparoscopic
- In the laparoscopic surgery approach, three small incisions are made in the abdomen with a small camera inserted to visualize the area of interest in the abdomen.
- Surgical tools are fed through trocars to minimize unnecessary surgical incisions in the patient. The appendix is surgically removed and taken out of the body through one of the small incisions.
- If the findings reveal suppurative appendicitis with complications such as rupture, abscess, adhesions, etc., conversion to open laparotomy may be necessary.
- Open laparotomy incisions most often center on the area of maximum tenderess, McBurney's point, in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen.