Is appendectomy as protection really necessary

[caters]

I have seen a lot of appendicitis cases online and I have to admit, I have medical student syndrome. Several times in my life I had the characteristic pain of appendicitis and felt hot and lost my appetite but it turned out to just be intestinal gas, no appendicitis whatsoever, all because my heat was just in my skin temperature and repeated testing with a thermometer both in the armpit(which I personally use and just add 1 degree F to the registered temperature) and under the tongue(which can be misleading in someone like me who drinks ice water every day of every year into thinking that the low temperature is hypothermia when really that once again is not a body temperature change) confirmed no fever, just high skin temperature.

The radiating pain? Probably from a gas bubble that moved relatively quickly from the small intestine to the large intestine and expanded in the process.

The loss of appetite? Probably a direct side effect of the pain itself.

But high skin temperature with ambient temperature in the 70s and no fever, no idea, definitely not from overheating though(otherwise I would have probably gotten a hyperthermia reading on the thermometer(fever temperature range but without a fever)).


So anyway, I have heard of people surviving appendicitis without appendectomy because for some reason their appendix didn't rupture. This appendicitis survival rate is very high in my Kepler Bb humanoids without appendectomy. So here are their common surgeries:

Cancer surgery
Organ transplant(except the heart since they have 2 hearts)
Aneurysm surgery
etc.

Rare surgeries:
CABG(They naturally have 2 sets of coronary arteries for each heart, 1 from the aorta that is directly connected to the heart in question and 1 from a branch of the opposite aorta, so MI is rarer and even when MI happens, it is lower risk because there is higher vascularization and higher amounts of cardiac stem cells)
Appendectomy
Gastric bypass
etc.

So if survival rate of appendicitis is high(like 80% or more) without an appendectomy, than is protective appendectomy really necessary(some surgeons will, even in a person without appendicitis, do an appendectomy just to guarantee that they won't ever get appendicitis)?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

The appendix is now known to play a role in the immune system, I think, so I don't think protective appendectomies are done anymore.

 

[Russ]

As a medical student, what is your opinion?

 

[caters]

Well my opinion is that an appendectomy does not need to be done during any other abdominal surgery if that person does not have appendicitis.

 

[SerpentSun]

For being a medical student, your understanding of biology is....eh.

In most cases, surgery is rarely necessary. Perhaps if a bullet or arrow is lodged in the body, or if there is severe internal bleeding that needs repaired. But real medical "professionals" have a tendency to remove the wrong organs and leave surgical tools in the body.

The appendix is no exception. Sometimes removal may be the best option, but appendectomies are rare in many countries. Not because of lower appendicitis rates, but because their medicine treats the overall state of the patient, not just their appendix. And many illnesses can be prevented altogether by focusing on whole-body health.

If I recall correctly, the appendix stores friendly microorganisms to recolonize the gut when our immune system is compromised. We owe much of our immune system to those microorganisms. If the appendix is removed, there goes our "bacteria backup". The antibiotics used to treat appendicitis and other infections also kills that good bacteria.

Appendicitis can also be caused or aggravated by constipation. Which can be prevented and alleviated by healthy gut flora, among all the other goodness those little guys do. So even without an appendix to get infected, appendectomy creates more problems than it solves.

Plus any surgery comes with additional health risks. Blood loss, medical mistakes, an increased risk of infection on top of an already-compromised immune system, etc. Which the medical industry might like to capitalize on. Unless the doctor offers proof, who knows what all hqppens under anesthesia?

If appendicitis isn't even a problem on your world, then of course a preventative appendectomy isn't necessary. Unless you just want to torment your characters. I'm curious though, why do your humanoids have such a high cancer rate? Whatever havoc they're wreaking upon their bodies would promote other disease beside cancer.

 

[caters]

I never said they had a high cancer rate in any of my posts. The closest to cancer that I have mentioned at all in my posts is Viral TB and that is an infection that is viral, forms granulomas(not tumors, granulomas), and repeatedly goes between active and latent. Yes the viruses in the granulomas will spread to every other organ in the body but it is mostly that little minority that are not in granulomas that spread. But yeah, I have never mentioned cancer.

If this were a mutant version of one of the beneficial viruses(yes we do have a virome and certain viruses help in certain places) than, I could say that this Viral TB is a Viral cancer. But it obviously did not come from a beneficial virus, it came from infectious viruses, Flu virus is in its family tree and explains all the respiratory symptoms including pneumonia that come with the disease.

 

[SerpentSun]

I never said they had a high cancer rate in any of my posts. The closest to cancer that I have mentioned at all in my posts is Viral TB and that is an infection that is viral, forms granulomas(not tumors, granulomas), and repeatedly goes between active and latent. Yes the viruses in the granulomas will spread to every other organ in the body but it is mostly that little minority that are not in granulomas that spread. But yeah, I have never mentioned cancer.

If this were a mutant version of one of the beneficial viruses(yes we do have a virome and certain viruses help in certain places) than, I could say that this Viral TB is a Viral cancer. But it obviously did not come from a beneficial virus, it came from infectious viruses, Flu virus is in its family tree and explains all the respiratory symptoms including pneumonia that come with the disease.

Except that you totally listed cancer surgeries as one of their most common procedures. In this thread, your original post, it says "cancer surgery". Right before "organ transplant", aside from their heart.

That technically counts as mentioning cancer in a post. You didn't say "viral granuloma surgery", you said "cancer surgery". Either they do get cancer or they don't. Which is it, viral graminoma surgery or just cancer surgery?

Listing cancer surgery as a "common surgery" not only implies that your humanoids get cancer, but it also implies that cancer is common. Thus "cancer surgery" being "common surgery". If you've never mentioned cancer, why perform surgery for a disease that isn't an issue?

 

[caters]

I just put it under common surgeries because while they might not be as common as say Aneurysm surgery, they are much more common than Coronary artery bypass grafts or Gastric Bypass.