Stump appendicitis; a case report

Abstract

When a patient has had an appendectomy, he/she may return with similar symptoms again. In this case, part of the appendix may be remain and become inflamed again, so the patient may present with symptoms similar to appendicitis, which is rare. in this report, we describe a 13 years old boy with similar symptoms to appendicitis with a history of appendectomy about 6 months ago. the patient had abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting with fever, anorexia and diarrhea from two days ago. The patient had a gradual onset of pain with maximum severity in the RLQ region. According to clinical signs and paraclinical results, laparotomy was performed, inflammation of the remained appendix (stump appendicitis) was observed. In this group of patients, pain in the RLQ area causes differential diagnoses but due to the history of previous appendectomy, re-inflammation of the appendix called “stump appendicitis” is less noticeable and may increase mortality and morbidity.

Keywords

• Stump appendicitis
• Recurrent appendicitis
• Appendectomy