Chewing Gum Following Appendectomy In the article entitled "Chewing Gum Reduces Postoperative Ileus after Open Appendectomy," researchers in Belgium found that by giving patients gum to chew immediately following an appendectomy, medical staffers could reduce the negative impact to the body of this procedure. This would increase the rate of postoperative intestinal transit recovery and lesson the likelihood for postoperative ileus. Patients have been given chewing gum following other intestinal procedures and so it is likely that similarly positive results would be expected in appendectomies. In this study, Ngowe et al. (2010) 46 patients who had undergone appendectomies were divided into two groups, one a control group and the other group would be given chewing gum. Those in the experimental group were tasked with chewing gum for thirty minutes three times a day until intestinal transit had recovered. It was found that those in the experimental group had their first occurrence of flatus on postoperative day 2.2 as opposed to day 3 for the control group. The experimental...

Finally, those who were in the experimental group were allowed to leave the hospital much earlier than those in the control group. Those who chewed gum were discharged at an average of 4.9 postoperative days while those in the control group were not discharged until postoperative day 6.7.
According to the report of this experiment, it is clear that the researchers found chewing gum to be a highly successful means of preventing postoperative ileus in appendectomy patients. In certain parts of the world where medicines and materials are scarce and where postoperative morbidity and infection is high, chewing gum is an inexpensive means of preventive postoperative trauma and in saving the lives of patients.

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