Review of the pathologic diagnoses of 2,216 appendectomy specimens.

A retrospective review of 2,216 patients surgically treated for a clinical diagnosis of acute appendicitis was performed. In 80% of cases, histologic acute appendicitis was found; 57% of these patients were male. The rate of normal appendectomy was 16%, and females comprised 68% of that group. The remaining 102 cases (4%) were designated as the alternate diagnosis group. Apart from histologic diagnoses that could be considered variants of normal (57) or acute inflammation (20), the alternate diagnosis group included such entities as neoplasm, parasitic infection, mucocele, and diverticulitis.