Disease Burden of General Surgical Emergencies in Mekelle Hospital, Ethiopia – A Retrospective Review Analysis

Abstract

Background: Surgical diseases are inadequately addressed in the country, and emergency disease conditions requiring surgical intervention contribute substantially to the country’s disease burden. Hence, this report was aimed at knowing the burden and capacity of general surgical emergency cases which will be useful for both the surgical and public health communities to plan a more adequate response.

Objective:This study aimed to set out the burden of general surgical emergencies, spotlighting its magnitude with a view to proffering some directions and solutions.

Method: A retrospective analysis was carried out in all patients with general surgical emergencies treated in Mekelle Hospital excluding trauma in two years period from September 1; 2019 to August 30; 2021.

Results: During the study period a total of 1666 patients with surgical emergencies had undergone different emergency surgical therapy. Among those, 1007 cases were general emergency surgical conditions accounting for 60.4%. Of the total general surgical emergencies 986 patients underwent emergency operations which accounted for 97.9% and 21(2.1%) cases were temporarily managed conservatively. In this series, the principal diagnostic features varied from acute abdominal emergencies, acute ano-rectal conditions, musculo-skeletal emergencies and urinary obstructions accounting for 604 (60.4%), 91 (9.0 %), 91 (9.0 %), and 77 (7.7%) respectively.  Among the lesion types, acute appendicitis alone was seen in 380 (37.7%) and ano-rectal abscesses in 80 (7.9%) of the total cases. Large bowel obstruction 78 (7.7 %), breast abscess 70 (7.0%) and small bowel obstructions 60 (6.0%) were also the other observed clinical entities. The effectiveness of surgical treatment in this series indicated an overall survival rate of   99.1% with low mortality rate (0. 9%).