Splenic abscess

Abstract

Splenic abscess is an unusual but potentially life-threatening illness, with a 0.7% incidence. The mortality rate for splenic abscess ranges from 15-20% in previously healthy patients with single unilocular leisons to 80% for multiple abscess in immunocompromised patients. An early diagnosis can be made by combining abdominal CT and/or US and clinical features. In this retrospective study of three years, there were a total 47 patients out of which 32 were males and 15 were females and the mean age was 38 years old. The most common symptoms at presentation were left upper quadrant or abdominal pain in all patients (100%), fever in 42 patients (89.36%) and nausea and vomiting in 26 patients (55.31%), breathlessness and tachypnea in 20 patients (42.5%) and 4 patients (8.5%) presented with palpable splenomegaly. A total of eight patients had pancreatitis, there were three patients with liver cirrhosis, two patients with history of splenic trauma, two patients with hiv , one patient with hbsag, two patients with tuberculosis and one patient with gastric neoplasm i.e. GIST. The majority of 41 patients i.e. 87.23% in our study had leukocytosis while other 19 patients i.e. 40.42% had anemia and 5 patient had blood culture positive.