Black children more likely to experience complications after emergency appendicitis surgery

Black children are four times more likely than white children to experience complications after having their appendix removed, but further assessment is needed to understand the cause of the association, according to research from UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital. The study, published in Anaesthesia , aimed to characterise the incidence and epidemiology of postoperative complications in children undergoing appendicectomy in the UK. Appendicectomy, the removal of the appendix, is a common surgical procedure in children, with around 10,000 operations performed annually in England. Though the risk of mortality is low, complication rates and risk factors are largely unknown In this study, researchers looked at data from 2,799 children aged 1-16 from 80 hospitals across the UK. Of these, 185 (7%) developed postoperative complications. The majority of complications were infective and treated with antibiotics. 75% of the complications were related to the wound and 25% were either respiratory, urinary, catheter-line-related or of unknown origin.