Is incidental appendectomy a safe practice?

In an attempt to determine the safety of appendectomy performed as an incidental procedure, the authors reviewed 853 operations (458 hysterectomies and 395 cholecystectomies) performed by five surgeons at one hospital between 1981 and 1984 and compared the results in 35% of the patients who underwent incidental appendectomy with those in the remainder. Factors studied were operative time, postoperative stay, postoperative fever and leukocytosis, the need for intravenous fluids, parenteral analgesia and antibiotics, and infectious complications. Most of these variables differed between individual surgeons, but the addition of incidental appendectomy did not significantly alter any variable for an individual surgeon or for the group as a whole. Incidental appendectomy seems to be a safe practice and one that does not alter the outcome of hysterectomy or cholecystectomy but does protect against subsequent appendicitis.