Medical conditions mimicking the acute surgical abdomen in children

Conclusion Although eight patients with negative laparotomy result constitute only 0.5% of all the surgeries and 2.7% of all the laparotomies, it still forms the bulk (i.e. 8/16=50%) of the patients with underlying medical cause of the surgical abdomen. There were two deaths, representing a mortality of 12.5% (2/16=12.5%), with one in the operated group and one in the nonoperated group. This is why we want to stress the importance of caution and sound clinical judgement in evaluating this subset of patients.
Source: Annals of Pediatric Surgery - Category: Surgery Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research