Evaluation of incidental laparoscopic appendectomy for acute right lower quadrant abdominal pain

ABSTRACT

The procedure of incidental laparoscopic appendectomy during diagnostic laparoscopy for acute right lower quadrant abdominal pain was evaluated in fifty patients over a three-year period. Twenty-five patients underwent diagnostic laparoscopy alone [group I], while the other twenty-five patients underwent diagnostic laparoscopy with incidental laparoscopic appendectomy [group II]. There was no difference in length of hospitalization or morbidity between the two groups. No mortality or intraoperative sepsis were recorded. Two patients required appendectomy eleven days and twenty days, respectively, after diagnostic laparoscopy for recurrent acute right lower quadrant abdominal pain. 8% of the resected appendices demonstrated acute inflammation upon pathologic review