Acute appendicitis: a quality assurance analysis.

The management of 722 patients admitted to Christchurch Hospital in 1979 with acute appendicitis (308) or non-specific abdominal pain (414) was such that 86% of the appendicitis patients had a timely removal of an inflamed but not perforated appendix and 9.2% of the patients with non-specific abdominal pain had an unnecessary appendicectomy. The mean stay in hospital was 4.8 days for patients who had a timely operation for acute appendicitis, 8.1 days for patients undergoing operation for perforated appendicitis, 6.1 days for patients who had non-specific abdominal pain and appendicectomy, and 2.7 days for patients who had non-specific abdominal pain without appendicectomy. There was no mortality.