Appendicectomy - Advantages and Complications

 Advantages

Removal of appendix 

• This will cure you, if you had appendicitis. No particular role is found for appendix in human body except for it being a remnant from the embryological development. So you will not have any problems because of the removal of the appendix.

Prevent Complications of Appendicitis 

• If the appendix is inflamed and you are diagnosed with appendicitis removing appendix will prevent complications like bursting of the appendix from happening.
• This will also prevent any infection from spreading inside the tummy as well as in your blood, essentially controlling and treating infection.

Relive of symptoms

• If you had tummy pain due to appendicitis, removing of the appendix will relieve all these symptoms.

Confirming the diagnosis

• Sometimes the doctors may not be entirely sure if you are having appendicitis or not. In such case if the probability is more towards appendicitis, your doctor will discuss with you about something called a diagnostic laparoscopy. This will allow surgeons to put a camera inside your body and directly see if appendix is inflamed or not. If diseased it will be taken out if not any other problems inside the abdomen can be explored.

Complications

Pain

• Any surgery that makes a cut in the body will cause pain. There will be pain killers to control this pain. Also when appendicectomy is done through keyhole surgery the pain will be much less. There will be pain killer injected right into the site of the cut, that will minimize any pain immediately after surgery. But the soreness at the site of the surgery will last few days from surgery. Make sure you take some pain killers with you from the hospital when you are discharged.

Bleeding

• Bleeding can happen during or after a particular surgical procedure. Risk is higher if the surgery was done inside the tummy rather than somewhere superficial. The risk may be higher if you are taking any blood thinners, aspirin / clopidogrel. The risk is higher in people having liver disease or any other clotting abnormalities.

Infection

• When we make a cut in your skin, the natural skin barrier is broken and germs can invade the human body. But before we make the cut we make sure all the surgical fields are disinfected and we use sterilised instruments so that the risk of infection is minimum. But in a situation like appendicitis, infection may have already started to spread inside the tummy. So when these infected material are being taken through surgical ports, etc, these areas can get infected. But when we anticipate contaminated surgery antibiotics are given to prevent such infections.
• In a situation where the appendix was ruptured or abscess was formed inside the tummy, these infections can persist inside the abdomen and can cause ongoing problems. Most common would be a persistent collection inside the abdomen. In this case you will have ongoing abdominal pain and fever. Doctors will do more tests and scans on you to confirm this. This might require another procedure to drain these collections. But these happen rarely and would not expect things to turn out this way in straightforward appendicectomy.

Damage to Surround Structures

• There are many organs inside the tummy. So when an operation is carried out inside the tummy many of these organs can get damaged theoretically. But surgeons do years of training so that they perform these procedures safely. But sometimes situations can be not so straightforward. For example bowel loops can be adhered together in the area of the appendix making it difficult for the operating surgeon to separate them from the appendix. Some times appendix can be hidden under large bowel making it difficult to bring it up. In these circumstances surgeons will do more dissection around the area where they think the appendix is, making organs and structures around prone for any damage. If such damage happens, it is the small bowel or the large bowel that is mostly damaged.
• Chances of this happening is very much less in a straightforward appendectomy but risk increases if the procedure becomes complicated as mentioned before.