title: Appendicectomy for recurrent and chronic appendicitis.
abstract: In recent years, several reports have underlined the possible existence of chronic appendicitis. Up to 38% of spontaneously resolving acute appendicitis may recur. We studied 41 patients operated on between July 2000 and June 2001 for chronic and recurrent appendicitis at a teaching hospital in the city of Nairobi. The patients comprised 17.8% of all patients undergoing surgery for appendicitis during the study period. The majority (65.9%) were females. The faecolith rate was 51.2%. About half of appendices removed for these symptoms were normal at histology. Nearly 70% of the normal appendices contained faecoliths. Symptoms resolved in 90% of faecolith-containing appendices and 87.5% of non-faecolith-containing appendices that were normal on histology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Anatomy, School of Medicine, University of Nairobi, PO Box 30197, Nairobi. hsaid2ke@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Saidi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hassan
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Chavda
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Magoha
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001062:Appendectomy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001064:Appendicitis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D002908:Chronic Disease; D017558:Elective Surgical Procedures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007630:Kenya / Q000453:epidemiology; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012008:Recurrence