Indian Journal of Health Sciences and Care

Acute appendicitis is one of the most common acute surgical condition of the abdomen and appendicular lump is encountered in 2–6% of patients. The traditional treatment of appendicular lump is conservative followed by delayed appendectomy. A comparison of early exploration versus conservative management of appendicular lump was done in 50 patients who presented with acute appendicitis with appendicular lump. All age group and both sexes were included in the study. The patients were divided randomly into two groups. Group I, early surgical exploration and group II, conservative approach with Ochsner Sherren regimen followed by interval appendectomy. Incidence of appendicular lump was 10.37%. Maximum patients were found in age group of 21–30 years. Average duration of symptoms was 3 days. Two methods were adopted for the management of appendicular lump. The first group included 25 patients who were operated immediately after investigations and second group of 25 patients were managed conservatively followed by delayed appendectomy. In the first group mean hospitalization time was 4 days. In the second group mean hospitalization time was 10 days, more chances of residual abscess, adhesive intestinal obstruction, failure of treatment and readmissions were noted. Based on our finding, it can be concluded that early surgical exploration confirms the diagnosis and cures the problem, reduce the cost of management, shortens the convalescence and hospital stay with reasonably satisfactory outcome.