title: The effect on postoperative pain of pulling the rectus muscle medially during open appendectomy surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We investigated whether pulling the rectus muscle medially during open appendectomy surgery had any effect on postoperative pain in this study.
  
  
  METHODS
  This prospective study was performed on patients 6 years and older who were admitted for acute appendicitis. The patients were divided into two groups, open appendectomy was performed by pulling the rectus muscle medially in the first group and splitting the rectus muscle in the second group. Pain was evaluated in both groups at preoperative and 12 and 24 hour postoperative by using a visual analog scale graded.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The first group consisted of 31 and the second group of 30 patients. The preoperative and 12 and 24 hour postoperative pain evaluation results were 8.25 ± 1.03, 2.96 ± 1.40 and 1.16 ± 0.93 in the first group and 8.36 ± 0.99, 4.90 ± 1.24 and 2.03 ± 1.06 respectively in the second group. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups for age, gender, inpatient duration and preoperative pain scores while the 12 and 24 hour postoperative pain scores were lower in the first group than the second group. This difference was statistically significant (P<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Performing the appendectomy by pulling the rectus muscle medially in clinics using open appendectomy will provide a more comfortable postoperative period for the children.
authors: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Izmir University, Faculty of Medicine, Izmir, Turkey - eturk19@yahoo.de.
authors: E
authors: E
authors: Turk
authors: N M
authors: NM
authors: Acimis
authors: F
authors: F
authors: Karaca
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Edirne
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Tan
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Kilic
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001062:Appendectomy / Q000379:methods*; D001064:Appendicitis / Q000601:surgery*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D017568:Rectus Abdominis / Q000601:surgery; D016896:Treatment Outcome