Evaluation of the anatomical Position of the appendix in patients underwent appendectomy

The appendix is a narrow, worm-shaped tube that separates from the inner wall of the cecum. The length of the appendix varies from 2 to 20 cm, but on average it is 9 cm and can be placed in different positions. It seems essential to determine common positions of the appendix in different populations to reduce the risk of complications associated with surgical treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the position of the appendix in appendectomy patients referred to the General Surgery department of Shohada-e-Ashayer Hospital, Khorramabad, Iran, from 2016 to 2019.

This was a retrospective cross-sectional study conducted on patients who underwent an appendectomy at Shohada-e-Ashayer Hospital, from 2016 to 2019. In this study, data including gender, age, appendix position, Body Mass Index (BMI), appendicitis pathology, and length of the appendix were collected from all patients referred to the hospital for an appendectomy. The collected information was entered into SPSS software (Version. 22) and analyzed using Chi-square and One-Way ANOVA tests at a 0.05 significance level.

This study was conducted on 222 appendectomy patients, of whom 128 patients (57.7%) were men and 94 (42.3%) were women. The mean age of the subjects was 28.32±14.84 years. The length of the appendix varied from 4.5 to 25 cm with an average length of 10.41±3.03cm. The most frequent position in the study population was the anterior position, which was observed in 112 subjects (50.45%), followed by the retro-cecal position in 95 (42.79%), and the para-cecal position in 15 patients (6.76%).

In our study population, the anterior position was the most common appendix orientation. Also, a relatively high frequency of retro-cecal position was observed.