Can Clinical Findings Prevent Negative Laparotomy in Parasitosis Mimicking Acute Appendicitis?

Abstract

Objectives. Rates of negative laparotomy (NL) for acute appendicitis have been reported as 15% and parasitosis contributed to 2%. This study was planned to reduce the rates of NL by preoperative determination of parasitosis. Methods. In retrospective examination of 2730 appendectomy specimens in Hitit University Department of General Surgery between 2008 and 2012, 55 patients were determined with parasitosis and compared with 102 age-matched randomly selected patients with lymphoid hyperplasia. Results. The parasite group comprised 63.6% females with a mean age of 15.1 years. The number of patients in the parasitosis group increased from city centre to rural areas of towns and villages (p<0.001). While a lower rate of sonographic findings was found in the parasitosis group, the findings of inflammation in the histopathological evaluation were significantly low (p=0.014, p=0.0011, resp.). A significant difference was determined between groups in respect of the eosinophil and haematocrit values. In the differentiation of patients with parasites, eosinophil of >2.2% was determined as a diagnostic value. Conclusion. It is important to determine parasitosis to prevent NL. When acute appendicitis is considered for young patients living in rural areas, the observation of high eosinophil together with negative sonographic findings should bring Enterobius vermicularis parasitosis to mind and thereby should prevent NL.