Antibiotics may be a good choice for some, but not all, patients with appendicitis, according to results from a large trial that was co-led by UCLA's Dr. David Talan.
"When we compared the outcomes of people treated with antibiotics alone or surgery to remove the appendix, we found that people receiving either treatment felt well at 30 days," said Talan, co-principal investigator of the study and a professor of emergency medicine and medicine/infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
"In terms of overall health status, antibiotics were no worse than surgery and allowed most people to avoid an operation in the short term."
The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
