Prospective Observational Study on acute Appendicitis Worldwide (POSAW)

Massimo Sartelli, Gian L. Baiocchi, Salomone Di Saverio, Francesco Ferrara, Francesco M. Labricciosa, Luca Ansaloni, Federico Coccolini, Deepak Vijayan, Ashraf Abbas, Hariscine K. Abongwa, John Agboola, Adamu Ahmed, Lali Akhmeteli, Nezih Akkapulu, Seckin Akkucuk, Fatih Altintoprak, Aurelia L. Andreiev, Dimitrios Anyfantakis, Boiko Atanasov, Miklosh Bala, Dimitrios Balalis, Oussama Baraket, Giovanni Bellanova, Marcelo Beltran, Renato Bessa Melo, Roberto Bini, Konstantinos Bouliaris, Daniele Brunelli, Adrian Castillo, Marco Catani, Asri Che Jusoh, Alain Chichom-Mefire, Gianfranco Cocorullo, Raul Coimbra, Elif Colak, Silvia Costa, Koray Das, Samir Delibegovic, Zaza Demetrashvili, Isidoro Di Carlo, Nadezda Kiseleva, Tamer El Zalabany, Mario Faro, Margarida Ferreira, Gustavo P. Fraga, Mahir Gachabayov, Wagih M. Ghnnam, Teresa Giménez Maurel, Georgios Gkiokas, Carlos A. Gomes, Ewen Griffiths, Ali Guner, Sanjay Gupta, Andreas Hecker, Elcio S. Hirano, Adrien Hodonou, Martin Hutan, Orestis Ioannidis, Arda Isik, Georgy Ivakhov, Sumita Jain, Mantas Jokubauskas, Aleksandar Karamarkovic, Saila Kauhanen, Robin Kaushik, Alfie Kavalakat, Jakub Kenig, Vladimir Khokha, Desmond Khor, Dennis Kim, Jae I. Kim, Victor Kong, Konstantinos Lasithiotakis, Pedro Leão, Miguel Leon, Andrey Litvin, Varut Lohsiriwat, Eudaldo López-Tomassetti Fernandez, Eftychios Lostoridis, James Maciel, Piotr Major, Ana Dimova, Dimitrios Manatakis, Athanasio Marinis, Aleix Martinez-Perez, Sanjay Marwah, Michael McFarlane, Cristian Mesina, Michał Pędziwiatr, Nickos Michalopoulos, Evangelos Misiakos, Ali Mohamedahmed, Radu Moldovanu, Giulia Montori, Raghuveer Mysore Narayana, Ionut Negoi, Ioannis Nikolopoulos, Giuseppe Novelli, Viktors Novikovs, Iyiade Olaoye, Abdelkarim Omari, Carlos A. Ordoñez, Mouaqit Ouadii, Zeynep Ozkan, Ajay Pal, Gian M. Palini, Lars I. Partecke, Francesco Pata, Michał Pędziwiatr, Gerson A. Pereira Júnior, Tadeja Pintar, Magdalena Pisarska, Cesar F. Ploneda-Valencia, Konstantinos Pouggouras, Vinod Prabhu, Padmakumar Ramakrishnapillai, Jean-Marc Regimbeau, Marianne Reitz, Daniel Rios-Cruz, Sten Saar, Boris Sakakushev, Charalampos Seretis, Alexander Sazhin, Vishal Shelat, Matej Skrovina, Dmitry Smirnov, Charalampos Spyropoulos, Marcin Strzałka, Peep Talving, Ricardo A. Teixeira Gonsaga, George Theobald, Gia Tomadze, Myftar Torba, Cristian Tranà, Jan Ulrych, Mustafa Y. Uzunoğlu, Alin Vasilescu, Savino Occhionorelli, Aurélien Venara, Andras Vereczkei, Nereo Vettoretto, Nutu Vlad, Maciej Walędziak, Tonguç U. Yilmaz, Kuo-Ching Yuan, Cui Yunfeng, Justas Zilinskas, Gérard Grelpois, Fausto Catena

Acute appendicitis (AA) is the most common surgical disease, and appendectomy is the treatment of choice in the majority of cases. A correct diagnosis is key for decreasing the negative appendectomy rate. The management can become difficult in case of complicated appendicitis. The aim of this study is to describe the worldwide clinical and diagnostic work-up and management of AA in surgical departments. This prospective multicenter observational study was performed in 116 worldwide surgical departments from 44 countries over a 6-month period (April 1, 2016-September 30, 2016). All consecutive patients admitted to surgical departments with a clinical diagnosis of AA were included in the study. A total of 4282 patients were enrolled in the POSAW study, 1928 (45%) women and 2354 (55%) men, with a median age of 29 years. Nine hundred and seven (21.2%) patients underwent an abdominal CT scan, 1856 (43.3%) patients an US, and 285 (6.7%) patients both CT scan and US. A total of 4097 (95.7%) patients underwent surgery; 1809 (42.2%) underwent open appendectomy and 2215 (51.7%) had laparoscopic appendectomy. One hundred eighty-five (4.3%) patients were managed conservatively. Major complications occurred in 199 patients (4.6%). The overall mortality rate was 0.28%. The results of the present study confirm the clinical value of imaging techniques and prognostic scores. Appendectomy remains the most effective treatment of acute appendicitis. Mortality rate is low.