Acute abdomen: clinical patterns and outcomes

Abstract

The acute abdomen accounts for 5% to 25% of all emergency department visits of 5 to 10 million patient encounters in the United States annually. The main objective of this study was to assess the surgical treatment outcomes for clinicopathological patterns of acute abdomen. This prospective descriptive study was conducted on 84 consecutive patients who underwent surgery in Al-Gamhouria Hospital within a period between January and December 2016. The incidence of the acute abdomen was 12.03% (84) of the total population of the surgical emergency cases in the study period. The male to female ratio of 1.6:1 and the mean age was 29.13 ± 17.10 years. Acute appendicitis was the most common cause 63%. Out of 84 patients 18 (21%) had complications and surgical site infection was the most postoperative complication 7 (8%). Overall mortality in our study was 2.4% and the duration of hospital stay for ≤ 7 days was 83% and >7 days was 17%. The recovery- rate from acute abdominal disease increases in proportion to the earliness of diagnosis and treatment.