Appendectomy Versus Non-Operative Treatment For Acute Non-Perforated Appendicitis in Children
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02687464. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
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Official title
A Multicentre, Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Appendectomy Versus Non-Operative Treatment For Acute Non-Perforated Appendicitis in Children
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Rationale and Aim: The standard treatment for acute appendicitis in children is appendectomy. An increasing body of evidence from the adult literature suggests that acute appendicitis may be treated effectively with antibiotics alone, avoiding the need for surgery. The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of non-operative treatment of acute appendicitis in children. Study design: Pragmatic, parallel-group, unmasked, non-inferiority multicentre randomized controlled trial (RCT). Patient allocation: Children will be randomly allocated (age 5-16 years) with a diagnosis of acute appendicitis to either laparoscopic appendectomy or treatment with antibiotics. Randomization will be performed using stratification to ensure equal distribution between groups of presenting clinical and demographic features that may influence outcome including gender, duration of symptoms and center. Interventions: One group of children will undergo laparoscopic appendectomy that is the current standard treatment for children with acute appendicitis. The other group will be treated with intravenous antibiotics. A treatment pathway specifically designed for this study will be used. Primary Outcome: To be meaningful to parents of, and clinicians treating, children with acute appendicitis, the primary outcome is treatment failure defined as: (i) any additional intervention related to appendicitis requiring general anesthesia within 1 year of randomization (including recurrence of appendicitis after non-operative treatment, which we will treat with appendectomy) or (ii) negative appendectomy. Secondary outcomes are: (i) complications; (ii) time to discharge following randomization; (iii) number and duration of hospital admissions. Sample size and data analysis: The proposed RCT has a 20% non-inferiority margin to test the null hypothesis that treatment with antibiotics is inferior to appendectomy. Based on data from collaborating centers and a pilot study that we have performed, we expect recruitment of 978 children in total (90% power) over 19 months allowing for drop out. Follow-up will be for 12 months.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT02687464
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 978 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 5 Years to 16 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Jan 19, 2016
- Primary completion
- Mar 1, 2023
- Completion
- Mar 1, 2023
- Last update posted
- Dec 25, 2023
2016 – 2023
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Children's Mercy Kansas City | Kansas City | Missouri | 64108 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02687464, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Dec 25, 2023 · Synced Sep 6, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT02687464 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.