PROF. MAGOHA GEORGE A. O.
I.O.M., M.B.B.S. (Lagos), F.R.C.S., F.W.A.C.S., F.I.C.S., F.I.B.A, M.S.I.C., FCS(ECSA), FAAS, FMCS(Urol)
gmagoha@uonbi.ac.ke
gmagoha@uonbi.ac.ke
In recent years, several reports have underlined the possible existence of chronic appendicitis. Up to 38% of spontaneously resolving acute appendicitis may recur. We studied 41 patients operated on between July 2000 and June 2001 for chronic and recurrent appendicitis at a teaching hospital in the city of Nairobi. The patients comprised 17.8% of all patients undergoing surgery for appendicitis during the study period. The majority (65.9%) were females. The faecolith rate was 51.2%. About half of appendices removed for these symptoms were normal at histology. Nearly 70% of the normal appendices contained faecoliths. Symptoms resolved in 90% of faecolith-containing appendices and 87.5% of non-faecolith-containing appendices that were normal on histology.