Antibiotics treat non-perforating appendix

DALLAS, April 29 (UPI) -- Non-perforating childhood appendicitis, usually treated with emergency surgery, may be better treated using antibiotics, U.S. researchers suggest.

Thomas B. Fomby at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and colleagues say non-perforating childhood appendicitis -- an appendix that hasn't burst -- seems to be a disease similar to non-perforating adult diverticulitis, which is often treated with antibiotics.

"It is assumed, but has never been proved, that appendicitis always perforates unless appendectomy is performed early in its course," Fomby says in a statement. "There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that this is not the case."

The researchers analyzed 27 years of data from U.S. hospital discharge records that revealed a correlation between non-perforating appendicitis and non-perforating diverticulitis.

The study, published in the Archives of Surgery, shows that although the annual incidence rates of adult non-perforating diverticulitis and child non-perforating appendicitis changed greatly during the past 25 years, their long-term trends followed the same general patterns, overall as well as region by region.

"These changes were significantly cointegrated, meaning that the incidence rates changed in time together, suggesting that non-perforating appendicitis and non-perforating diverticulitis could be different manifestations of the same underlying process," Fomby said.