Ask Doctor K: Removing appendix has no negative health effects

DEAR DOCTOR K: Why do doctors remove the appendix when someone has appendicitis? Don’t we need this organ?

DEAR READER: Appendicitis is an inflammation of the appendix. This small, fingerlike tube hangs from the lower right side of the large intestine. It usually becomes inflamed because of an infection or blockage. The condition is quite common; it affects one in every 500 people in the United States each year.

An appendicitis attack usually begins with abdominal pain that starts just above the navel and moves to the lower right side of the abdomen. Many people also experience loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and low-grade fever. Other symptoms can include abdominal swelling, pain when the right side of the abdomen is touched and inability to pass gas.

Surgical removal of the appendix is called “appendectomy,” and it has been the go-to treatment for appendicitis since the late 1800s. It is the most common reason for emergency abdominal surgery in the U.S. That’s true in children as well as adults.

Why is appendectomy so widely used? For one thing, if untreated, an infected appendix can burst. A potentially deadly infection can spread throughout the abdomen and into the bloodstream, requiring complicated emergency surgery. Prompt removal of the appendix before it bursts helps avoid this dangerous situation.

Also, we don’t know what the appendix does – or if it does anything at all. Removing it has no negative effects on a person’s health. In fact, sometimes when surgeons have to perform abdominal surgery for other reasons (like an inflamed gallbladder), they remove a healthy appendix while they’re at it. That eliminates the possibility of appendicitis developing in the future.

In Europe, there is a trend of treating some cases of appendicitis just with antibiotics, not surgery, and then closely observing the patient. Appendectomy is performed only if needed.

In the U.S., this strategy is followed when the patient is too ill to undergo surgery.