Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Nov 27, 2024; 16(11): 3453-3462
Published online Nov 27, 2024. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v16.i11.3453
Clinical significance of appendicoliths in elderly patients over eighty years old undergoing emergency appendectomy: A single-center retrospective study
Ling-Qiang Min, Jing Lu, Hong-Yong He
Ling-Qiang Min, Hong-Yong He, Department of General Surgery/Emergency Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
Jing Lu, Department of Nursing, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
Co-first authors: Ling-Qiang Min and Jing Lu.
Author contributions: Min LQ and Lu J collected and analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript; He HY designed the study and edited the manuscript; Min LQ and Lu J contributed equally to this work; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82373417; Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai, No. 23ZR1409900; and Clinical Research Fund of Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, No. ZSLCYJ202343.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University (No. B2024-321).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hong-Yong He, MD, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Department of General Surgery/Emergency Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, No. 180 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032, China. he.hongyong@zs-hospital.sh.cn
Received: June 13, 2024
Revised: August 29, 2024
Accepted: September 12, 2024
Published online: November 27, 2024
Processing time: 138 Days and 16.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Acute appendicitis is increasingly a common cause of abdominal pain among elderly patients in China. Although antibiotic therapy has become the primary treatment for acute uncomplicated appendicitis, elderly patients experience significantly higher rates of postoperative complications. Our study revealed that about 40% of these elderly patients had an appendicolith, which put them at a higher risk for appendiceal gangrene and perforation. This finding emphasizes the necessity for timely surgical intervention in these cases.