International Case Reports Journal (ISSN: 2770-9647) | Volume 2, Issue 6 | Research Article | Open Access
Ismail Al-Shameri*
Department of General & Vascular Surgery, Aden University, Yemen
*Correspondence to: Ismail Al-Shameri
Fulltext PDF1.1. Background: The 'acute abdomen' is defined as a sudden onset of severe abdominal pain of less than 24 hours duration. Its accounts for 5% to 10% of all emergency department visits of 5 to 10 million patient encounters in the United States annually. The objective of this study is to determine the clinical presentation outcomes in patients with non-traumatic acute abdomen.
1.2. Patients and method: This is prospective descriptive hospital based study of 100 consecutive patients who were treated in Al-Gamhoorhiah hospital within a period between January to December 2016. Chi square, Fisher Exact and Student t-test were the mainly used statistical test with level of significance of < 0.05. The main variables which were reviewed in this study were the demographics of patients with acute abdomen, clinical presentations, etiology, postoperative complications, mortality, types of treatment and hospital stay.
1.3. Results: the prevalence of acute abdomen was 14.03% (100) from the total population of non-traumatic acute abdomen with male to female ratio of 1.6:1 and average age of 29.13 ± 17.10 years ranged between (9-70 years) with mostly of patients (37%) with age group 15 - 24 years old. Local peritonitis was presented clinically in 57% of patients and acute appendicitis was the commonest responsible cause 53%. Out of 100 patients with acute abdomen, 16% were managed conservatively while 84% were operated. And out of (84) operated patients 66 (78.6) were had no post-operative complications but 18 (21.7) were had complications, and surgical site infection was the most post-operative complication 7 (38.9). Overall mortality in our study of acute non-traumatic abdominal pain was 2%, and hospital stay duration was ≤ 7 days represented 83% while >7 days represented only 17%.
1.4. Conclusion: Acute appendicitis was the main cause of non-traumatic patients with acute abdomen and mostly presented as local peritonitis. Most patients having acute abdomen are relatively young in the 2nd and 3rd decades of life and male was most involved. Early diagnosis and its management play an important role in a better clinical outcome. The vast majority of patients were treated surgically, and the surgical site infection was the most post-operative complication.
Acute abdominal pain; Peritonitis; Infection
Gamal MI Khuda Bux, Abdullah M Baaodhah, Salem MAl Mahrooqi. Non-traumatic Acute Abdomen: Clinical Presentation and Outcomes. Int Case Rep Jour. 2022;2(6):1-6.