An observational study in Appendicitis and Appendectomy, sponsored by University of Birmingham. Recruiting at 7 sites in 7 countries. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-04-02.
Sponsored by University of Birmingham · Observational
This study aims to assess and improve the global management of appendicitis, the most common emergency surgery, by examining various aspects of emergency care systems worldwide. Appendicitis is a time-sensitive condition, and delays in diagnosis or treatment can lead to complications, affecting patient outcomes and increasing healthcare costs. The study uses appendicitis as a "tracer condition" to explore how different healthcare systems manage emergency care, focusing on factors like access, quality, and efficiency. By gathering data from hospitals worldwide, the study seeks to identify areas where emergency surgical care can be improved, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The main goal is to identify gaps in emergency care systems, using a set of key performance measures (KPMs) that assess access to care, the quality of surgical treatment, and patient safety. These include factors like the time from symptom onset to first surgical assessment, the rate of appendectomy performed via minimally invasive (laparoscopic) surgery, and postoperative complications. The study aims to collect data on at least 14,000 patients from around 500 hospitals globally between February and May 2025. The data will be analyzed by hospital income group (from low to high) to understand how different resource levels impact outcomes and to help guide future policy and practice improvements.
The study also includes two sub-studies that focus on specific issues in surgical care. The Sustainability and Waste Management sub-study aims to explore how hospitals manage waste and sustainability practices in operating theatres. This sub-study is part of global efforts to reduce carbon emissions in healthcare settings. The Financing sub-study examines the financial burden of appendicectomy, particularly the out-of-pocket costs for patients in LMICs. It will explore how the costs of open vs. laparoscopic surgery differ and investigate the impact of these costs on patients.
By combining global data on clinical outcomes with information on hospital resources and patient finances, this study hopes to provide valuable insights into how to improve emergency surgical care across diverse settings, making recommendations that can lead to better access to safe, timely, and affordable treatment for appendicitis worldwide.
This prospective, multicentre, global cohort study will capture patients within an overall study window of 3 February 2025 to 25 May 2025. Any hospital performing appendicectomy worldwide will be eligible to participate, collecting data over 14 days for consecutive patients undergoing appendicectomy for suspected or confirmed acute appendicitis.
The primary aim is to identify areas for system strengthening in emergency surgery using appendicitis as a tracer condition with a pre-defined key performance measurement set. The secondary aims of this study are to evaluate variations in the presentation, diagnosis, management, access to minimally invasive surgery, and outcomes of patients that have surgery for suspected acute appendicitis. Variation could be assessed across groups stratified by human development index, hospital funding, urban/rural, and facility level.
All consecutive patients undergoing appendicectomy for suspected or confirmed appendicitis are eligible for inclusion and should be captured in the study. No additional follow-up is required for this study. Follow-up data will be collected from routine health records.
Based on previous NIHR-GSU prospective cohort studies, this study is anticipated to include around 500 hospitals. Based on an average of one appendectomy per day and two 14-day data collection blocks per hospital, we anticipate capturing data for 14,000 patients.
419 studies on the registry are indexed under Appendicitis; 67 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 14,000 is above the median of 200 across 151 observational studies indexed under Appendicitis.
Browse Appendicitis studies →University of Birmingham is the lead sponsor of 182 studies on the registry; 29 are open to participants now.
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All consecutive patients undergoing appendicectomy for suspected or confirmed appendicitis are eligible for inclusion and should be captured in the study.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Exclusion Criteria:
All patients undergoing appendicectomy for suspected or confirmed appendicitis by any surgical approach should be included. This includes patients who went theatre with suspect appendicitis even if the intraoperative or pathology results found a different diagnosis, so long as an appendicectomy was performed. It also includes patients who went to theatre for reasons other than suspected appendicitis but were found to have appendicitis intraoperatively and underwent appendicectomy. This includes interval appendicectomy and right hemicolectomy if performed for acute appendicitis. There are no age restrictions, although, if appropriate participating hospitals can choose to only include children or only adults, based on an age cut-off of their choice.
Procedure: Appendicectomy
Both open and minimally invasive (laparoscopic and robotic) interventions are eligible for inclusion. Laparoscopic and robotic converted to open cases are also eligible.
Time from symptom onset to first assessment by the surgical team
Duration from onset of symptoms to first assessment by the surgical team
Time frame: Any time up to point of first assessment by surgical team
Perforation rate
Proportion of all patients with histology-confirmed appendicitis who had a perforated appendix on histology
Time frame: Within 30 days postoperatively
Imaging
Proportion of all patients having preoperative cross-sectional (CT/MRI) imaging
Time frame: From presentation to time of Surgery
Laparoscopy rate
Proportion of all patients undergoing a laparoscopic approach for appendicectomy
Time frame: Time from Knife to Skin to end of operation
Time from first assessment to theatre
Duration from decision to operate to knife to skin
Time frame: Time from first assessment by surgical team to knife on skin
Negative appendicectomy rate
Proportion of all patients with a histologically normal appendix
Time frame: Within 30 days postoperatively
Post-operative length of stay
Length of stay (in days) in hospital after appendicectomy. Day of surgery is considered day 0.
Time frame: Within 30 days postoperatively
30-day overall Clavien-Dindo complications
Adverse post-operative events may be classified in different ways: * Failure of treatment * Sequelae * Complication Definitions of these are provided in Appendix C of the study protocol.
Time frame: Within 30 days postoperatively
Plan to share: No — Alligator is collecting only routinely collected hospital data, seeking to measure current clinical practice.
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