One Surgery Often Enough for Peritonitis

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"It doesn't like look there's a huge difference in survival," Flum said. "But the approach with fewer operations and less cost would be the preferred one."

Dr. E. Patchen Dellinger, chief of the division of general surgery at the University of Washington, Seattle, said he hopes that questions about the validity of automatic re-operation are now settled.

"An area that could use study is how long antibiotics should be continued in the treatment of peritonitis," said Dellinger, who also wrote a journal commentary on the Dutch study. "Currently, I believe that many [peritonitis] patients get antibiotics for far longer than needed."

More information

There's more on peritonitis at the University of Maryland.