Irrigation Versus No Irrigation for Perforated Appendicitis

July 31, 2012 updated by: Shawn St. Peter, Children's Mercy Hospital Kansas City
The purpose is to quantify the effect of irrigation during laparoscopic appendectomy for perforated appendicitis.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Detailed Description

This will be a prospective, randomized clinical trial involving patients who present to the hospital with perforated appendicitis. This will be a definitive study.

Power calculation was based on abscess rate in the previous prospective study. An unacceptable abscess rate needed to be chosen. Our current rate is 20%, or one-fifth of the patients. If this were to increase by 15%, it would place just over one third of the patients at risk which would be unacceptable. This is comparable to the 36% rejection level we used for the previous IRB approved trial (#07 02-031). Using a delta of 0.15 with alpha of 0.05 and power of 0.8, the sample size is 109 patients in each arm. Therefore we will anticipate enrolling 220.

Subjects will be those children who are found to have severe inflammatory changes on imaging or a high clinical suspicion of perforation. Permission will be obtained from parents prior to the operation. All of these children will be under duress prior to randomization, therefore we request waiving assent as we have done with the previous perforated appendicitis studies.

The final decision to include a child in the study will made after perforation has been visually confirmed during surgery. Perforation will be defined as an identifiable hole in the appendix or stool in the abdomen. The randomization assignment will be made known at the initiation of the operation, and confirmation of perforation will confirm the patient will utilize the next randomization slot.

The irrigation group will have suction irrigator set up with a 1 liter bag of normal saline. The surgeon must use at least 500 ml of this bag but may use as much as they choose.

The no irrigation group will have the suction irrigator set up without the saline attachment. This will leave them with the capacity for suction only. Since several suction devices exist, this will assure the same type of suction for both groups.

After the operation, both groups will be managed in the same manner. When the patient is tolerating a regular diet, on oral pain medication and has been afebrile for over 12 hours, they will be discharged on oral antibiotics to complete a course of 7 days. If they stay until the 5th post-operative day, a white blood cell count will be checked, which if it is normal, they will be discharged to home without antibiotics. This is standard post-operative care as delineated by our previous prospective, randomized.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Anticipated)

220

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • Missouri
      • Kansas City, Missouri, United States, 64108
        • Children's Mercy Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

1 month to 17 years (CHILD)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Under 18 yrs old
  • Perforation identified as hole in the appendix or fecalith in the abdomen

Exclusion Criteria:

  • No perforation
  • A significant comorbidity that would limit their ability to recover from appendectomy in a normal fashion

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL
  • Masking: NONE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
ACTIVE_COMPARATOR: Irrigation
Irrigation of the area with at least 500ml normal saline using the power suction/irrigator
Irrigation of the area with at least 500ml NS using the power suction/irrigator
Other Names:
  • washout
ACTIVE_COMPARATOR: No Irrigation
Only suction with the power suction/irrigator without saline attached
Suction only using suction/irrigator
Other Names:
  • suction

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Post-operative abscess
Time Frame: 1 month
1 month

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
length of stay
Time Frame: 2 weeks
2 weeks
operating time
Time Frame: 1 day
1 day

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

December 1, 2008

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

June 1, 2012

Study Completion (ACTUAL)

June 1, 2012

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 2, 2009

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 2, 2009

First Posted (ESTIMATE)

March 3, 2009

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ESTIMATE)

August 1, 2012

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 31, 2012

Last Verified

July 1, 2012

More Information

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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