Laparoscopic Assisted or Total Laparoscopic Appendectomy in Patients With Uncomplicated Acute Appendicitis: a Matched Case-control, Cost-utility Study

Acute appendicitis (AA), is a common intra-abdominal surgical pathology with the overall incidence of approximately 7% and mortality of 0.2-0.8%. Treatment of choice is the surgical removal of the inflamed appendix by using open or laparoscopic appendectomy. Until the first laparoscopic removal of an inflamed appendix by Kurt Semm in 1980, the gold standard for surgical treatment of acute appendicitis remained open appendectomy as first described by McBurney in 1891.

At the beginning, LA remained questionable whether the benefits of the procedure outweigh over its disadvantages. However, since laparoscopic technology advances and surgeons' expertise increases, many surgeons have successfully performed a multitude of laparoscopic procedures for AA, with a continued increasing trend in its use. Eventually, after LA proved to be a feasible and at least as safe as the corresponding open procedure, it has rapidly gained worldwide acceptance.

There are more techniques for LA in the literature but only a few of them have gained to access and described in modern textbooks. The traditional approach to LA uses three ports. Over the past decade, successful attempts to perform the procedure with fewer ports have been reported which include two-port techniques, single-port techniques, and hybrid approaches. The two-port appendectomy technique consist of one port providing access for a rigid telescope with a working channel, and second port for a grasping forceps that is used to retract the appendix. In the single-port assisted technique, after a stitch is placed between the appendix and the anterior abdominal wall to pull the appendix and create a tension to facilitate dissection, and then appendectomy is performed intracorporeally. The hybrid technique formed from the combination of both open and laparoscopic approaches. Namely the appendix is pulled out through the only or one of the port, and a traditional open appendectomy is then performed extracorporeally.

The authors' primary objectives were to 1) identify a simple, safe and feasible way to perform laparoscopic appendectomy in patients with uncomplicated acute appendicitis. 2) determine the health related quality of life of the patients using Euro Qol (EQ) - 5 Dimensions (5D) - 3 Levels (3L) (EQ-5D-3L) and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and calculate the cost per quality adjusted life years (QALYs) gained after the procedures (LAA and TLA). 3) Purpose a surgical algorithm when approaching to acute appendicitis with the consideration of quality of health and cost. For these purposes, a case-control study was designed in January 2015 to investigate these issues.