Early Decades Of Life Research Articles

THE TREATMENT OF PERITONITIS ASSOCIATED WITH APPENDICITIS

In recent years it has become customary to begin articles on acute appendicitis with an apology. Since appendicitis is still the most common acute abdominal lesion, and since its etiology is unknown and its mortality rate is higher than it was fifteen years ago, it would seem that it is still worthy of thoughtful consideration. The mortality of appendicitis in the United States now averages over 20,000 a year. In a majority of these deaths the patients had been in the early decades of life with a good life expectancy. In 1930, one of us¹made a study of the patients with acute appendicitis treated in the University Hospital during a period of about four years. It was then our practice to perform an appendectomy as soon as the diagnosis of acute appendicitis was made without regard for the stage of the disease. As a result of that study,

CARCINOMA IN EARLY LIFE.

Carcinoma is usually regarded as the malignant tumor of later life, having its legitimate age limit at 35, though it is most frequently met with after 40 years of age. With increasing study of the malignant neoplasms, age is gradually losing its hold as a criterion of difference between sarcoma and carcinoma, the former being found at almost any age, while carcinoma is beginning to be noticed more frequently during the earlier decades of life. Having had the opportunity of examining the material from nine cases of carcinoma between the ages of 23 and 35 years, I have incorporated the same in the subject of my paper, and drawn from them such points as were of pathologic interest. <h3>Case 1.</h3> —Mrs. A. F. R., presented herself in the private practice of Dr. L. W. Littig, who has kindly furnished the clinical data. She was admitted to University Hospital, Dec. 6,