Emergency abdominal procedures in patients above 70.

The tremendous increase of emergency abdominal operations in elderly adults is due to the growing geriatric population, many with abdominal pathology. There also seems to be a greater willingness of the surgeon to operate on these patients. This report deals with 200 consecutive abdominal emergency operations in patients above age 70. During a period of 8 years, 472 operations in this age group were performed; there was a total of 871 emergency operations in all ages. The number of men was higher than women. The commonest cause of surgery in this group was biliary disease, followed by intestinal obstruction. Appendicitis was responsible for only 15% of the geriatric emergencies. The results suggest that early surgery with definitive procedures offers the best chance of success.