Antibiotics may be enough to treat appendicitis.

Surgery has traditionally been the only way to treat appendicitis, however, treatment with antibiotics has been found to be effective in about fifty percent of cases.

This is great news from a cost control perspective.

Also, use of antibiotics reduces the risk of surgery and infections spread in hospitals.

Researchers from the Nottingham Digestive Diseaeses Centre NIHR Biomedical Research Unit report that patients with uncomplicated appendicitis may be safely and effectively treated initially with standard antibiotics. Using antibiotics also significantly reduces the risk of complications and death, compared with surgery, the researchers found. For complicated cases, however — those involving perforated appendixes, for example — still need surgical removal.