Antibiotics, not surgery, could treat appendicitis in children

Appendicitis is currently treated through an operation to remove the appendix, known as an appendicectomy, and it is the most common cause of emergency surgery in children.

Now you can save your kid from surgery, as a study shows that antibiotics may be an effective treatment for acute non-complicated appendicitis in children, instead of surgery.

Appendicitis is a serious medical condition in which the appendix becomes inflamed and causes severe pain.

The appeared in the journal of Pediatrics

The condition, which causes the appendix -- a small organ attached to the large intestine -- to become inflamed due to a blockage or infection, affects mainly children and teenagers.

Appendicitis is currently treated through an operation to remove the appendix, known as an appendicectomy, and it is the most common cause of emergency surgery in children.

The study, led by Nigel Hall from the University of Southampton in England, assessed existing literature published over the past 10 years that included 10 studies reporting on 413 children, who received non-operative treatment rather than an appendectomy.

It showed that no study reported any safety concern or specific adverse events related to non-surgical treatment, although the rate of recurrent appendicitis was 14%.

“Our review shows that antibiotics could be an alternative treatment method for children. When we compared the adult literature to the data in our review it suggested that antibiotic treatment of acute appendicitis is at least as effective in children as in adults,”

“In our initial trial, we will see how many patients and families are willing to join the study and will look at how well children in the study recover. This will give us an indication of how many children we may be able to recruit into a future larger trial and how the outcomes of non-operative treatment compare with an operation,” Hall stated.