Surgical Abdomen in School Age Children: A Prospective Review From Two Centers In SouthWestern Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Surgical abdomen traverses all age groups. We sought to define the aetiology, patients' characteristics, and outcome of management amongst children Methods: Two years prospective review of patients aged 5-15 years managed for surgical abdomen at the Wesley Guilds Hospital Ilesa and Mishmael Medical Centre Akure, Nigeria. Results: Fifty two patients were treated. The male: female ratio was 1:1. The age range was 5years to 15years (mean=11.25 ±2.24years). Mean duration of illness was 29.5hours (range 2-72hours). Gut perforation was the most common aetiology (n=39; 75%); with perforations due to infections most prevalent (n= 34; 87.2%). Ten cases (19.2%) were trauma related and showed male predominance. Obstructed gut accounted for 15.4% (n=8) of cases; and showed female predominance. Five out of the eight small bowel obstructions (62.5%) were due to post operation adhesions. Pre-operative and post-operative diagnoses were congruent in 90.4% (n=47) of cases. Major post-operative complications were surgical site infection (20; 38.5%), and pneumonia (5; 9.6%). The average hospital stay was 9days (range 4-21days). Mortality rate was 1.9% (n=1). Conclusion: Acute abdomen requiring surgical intervention is mainly infective origin. The male child is more at risk of abdominal trauma while gut obstruction was more common in females.

Occurrence of Surgical Site Infections at a Tertiary Healthcare Facility in Abuja, Nigeria: A Prospective Observational Study

“…In the same centre, we reported 15.6% and 13.6% SSI prevalence rates in 2013 and 2014 studies, respectively [ 18 ]. This is comparable to high incidences of SSIs reported across Nigeria [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ], Ethiopia (19.1%) [ 24 ] and Tanzania (26.0%) [ 25 ]. It was however, higher than figures reported in Egypt [ 26 ], Ghana [ 27 ], England [ 28 ] and USA [ 29 ].…”