Nigel Hall, associate professor of pediatric surgery at the University of Southampton and co-author of the study says, “It has become clear in recent years that in adults there are some patients with appendicitis who can recover from the disease without an operation, and we are frequently asked by parents of children with appendicitis whether their child really needs an operation to get better" as quoted by The Guardian.

The research in the Journal of Pediatrics was an overview of 10 different studies conducted in the past 10 years. Collectively, all the studies examined the use of antibiotics to treat appendicitis in 766 children from various parts of the world out of which 433 of them were children with acute cases of the illness. 

Scientists found that the antibiotics worked on 97 percent of children who did not undergo any surgical treatment. They also found that for 14 percent of them, appendicitis returned. But by the end of the study, a total 82 percent of children responded well to the antibiotics. 

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Hall further said, “While the benefit of non-operative treatment might be that you can avoid an operation, if you get a recurrence of your appendicitis it is likely that you will then be recommended to have an operation to remove the appendix in the long run.” 

But the scientists noted that there still needs to be further research carried around the effects of the antibiotics on children with appendicitis complications so that they can find out whether antibiotics or surgery is a better treatment option.

A consultant surgeon at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Anthony Lander, mentions that both the treatments have pros and cons. For instance, operations may be costly but will make sure that the problem does not recur, whereas antibiotics is a cheaper and less invasive way to heal appendicitis albeit does not ensure that it won’t recur again. (nik/kes)