Delaying appendectomy does not lead to more SSIs

Editor's Note

A 16-hour delay from emergency department (ED) admission or a 12-hour delay from hospital admission to performance of an appendectomy was not associated with an increased risk of surgical site infections (SSIs), in this study.

Of 1,338 patients included in the study, 70% had a diagnosis of simple appendicitis (SA, acute) and 30% had complicated appendicitis (CA, gangrenous/ruptured). Postoperative SSIs were more common in CA patients (5.7% vs 1.2%).

Compared with patients who did not develop an SSI, those who did, had similar times between ED triage and appendectomy (11.5 vs 9.7 hours) and hospital admission and appendectomy (5.5 vs 4.3 hours).

Independent SSI risk factors were CA, longer symptom duration, and presence of sepsis.

Objectives: To investigate the association between time to appendectomy and the risk of surgical site infections (SSIs) in children with appendicitis across multiple NSQIP-Pediatrics institutions. Background: Several recently published single institution retrospective studies have reported conflicting relationships between delaying appendectomy and the risk of increasing surgical site infections (SSI) in both children and adults.