A perforated appendix: should we drain?

The effectiveness of intraperitoneal drain was studied on patients undergoing appendicectomy for perforated appendicitis. Randomly 40 patients were allocated with drainage by corrugated rubber drains and 46 patients were without drainage. There were 5 deaths in the series, out of which 4 (10%) were in the drainage group and one (2.2%) in the group without drainage. The incidences of major wound sepsis, paralytic ileus, intraperitoneal abscess and urinary infection were observed in 55%, 42.5%, 12.5% and 15% respectively in drainage group and 50%, 28.3%, 21.7% and 15.2% respectively in non-drainage group. Occurrence of subphrenic abscess (7.5%), burst abdomen (5%) and faecal fistula (5%) were confined to drainage group only.