Home Print this page Email this page Small font sizeDefault font sizeIncrease font size
Users Online: 3575

 

Home About us Editorial board Search Ahead of print Current issue Archives Submit article Instructions Subscribe Advertise Contacts Login 
     
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Year : 2012  |  Volume : 53  |  Issue : 2  |  Page : 76-79

Non-trauma related paediatric abdominal surgical emergencies in Lagos, Nigeria: Epidemiology and indicators of survival


Department of Surgery, Paediatric Surgery Unit, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, PMB 12003, Idi Araba, Lagos, Nigeria

Correspondence Address:
Adesoji O Ademuyiwa
Paediatric Surgery Unit, Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Idi Araba, Lagos, PMB 12003, Idi Araba, Lagos
Nigeria
Login to access the Email id

Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


DOI: 10.4103/0300-1652.103546

Rights and Permissions

Background : Pediatric surgical emergencies are associated with higher morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study is to describe the epidemiology of non-trauma related pediatric abdominal surgical emergencies in our centre and determine the indicators for survival in a cohort of patients. Patients and Methods : A retrospective study of children aged 1 day to 15 years who presented with non-trauma related abdominal emergencies at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). Results : There were 129 children. The median age at presentation was 5 months (range: 1 day-15 years). There were 104 males and 25 females. Sixty-four (49.6%) patients presented within 48 hours of the onset of the symptoms while 65 (50.4%) presented after 48 hours. Intestinal obstruction is the commonest indication for pediatric emergency surgery in our centre accounting for 76 patients (58.9%). Appendicitis is the second most common indication for emergency surgery with 13 patients (10.1%). Thirteen patients (10.1%) had postoperative complications. There were 13 deaths in all (10.1% mortality rate). Eleven out of 43 (25.6%) neonates died compared with 2 (2.3%) out of 86 patients in the other age groups (P=0.002). Seven out of 107 (6.5%) patients that had surgery within 72 hours died while 5/22 (22.7%) patients died who had surgery after 72 hours (P=0.003). There were 4 mortalities (28.6%) among patients with postoperative complications compared with 9 (7.8%) mortalities among 116 patients without any postoperative complications (Pp=0.001). Conclusion : Intestinal obstruction is the commonest pediatric surgical emergency seen in LUTH. Neonatal age, admission to surgery intervention time >72 hours, and severe postoperative complications are associated with high mortality.


[FULL TEXT] [PDF]*
Print this article     Email this article
 Next article
 Previous article
 Table of Contents

 Similar in PUBMED
   Search Pubmed for
   Search in Google Scholar for
 Related articles
 Citation Manager
 Access Statistics
 Reader Comments
 Email Alert *
 Add to My List *
 * Requires registration (Free)
 

 Article Access Statistics
    Viewed5597    
    Printed283    
    Emailed0    
    PDF Downloaded173    
    Comments [Add]    
    Cited by others 6    

Recommend this journal