• CODA Collaborative, David R Flum, Giana H Davidson, Sarah E Monsell, Nathan I Shapiro, Stephen R Odom, Sabrina E Sanchez, F Thurston Drake, Katherine Fischkoff, Jeffrey Johnson, Joe H Patton, Heather Evans, Joseph Cuschieri, Amber K Sabbatini, Brett A Faine, Dionne A Skeete, Mike K Liang, Vance Sohn, Karen McGrane, Matthew E Kutcher, Bruce Chung, Damien W Carter, Patricia Ayoung-Chee, William Chiang, Amy Rushing, Steven Steinberg, Careen S Foster, Shaina M Schaetzel, Thea P Price, Katherine A Mandell, Lisa Ferrigno, Matthew Salzberg, Daniel A DeUgarte, Amy H Kaji, Gregory J Moran, Darin Saltzman, Hasan B Alam, Pauline K Park, Lillian S Kao, Callie M Thompson, Wesley H Self, Julianna T Yu, Abigail Wiebusch, Robert J Winchell, Sunday Clark, Anusha Krishnadasan, Erin Fannon, Danielle C Lavallee, Bryan A Comstock, Bonnie Bizzell, Patrick J Heagerty, Larry G Kessler, and David A Talan.
• The affiliations of the members of the writing committee are as follows: the University of Washington (D.R.F., G.H.D., S.M., A.K.S., E.F., D.C.L., B.A.C., P.J.H., L.G.K.), the Washington State Hospital Association (B.B.), Harborview Medical Center (H.E., J.C.), the Swedish Medical Center (K.A.M.), and the Virginia Mason Medical Center (J.T.Y., A.W.), Seattle, Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma (V.S., K.M.), and Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, Everett (C.S.F., S.M.S.) - all in Washington; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (N.I.S., S.R.O.) and Boston University Medical Center (S.E.S., F.T.D.) - both in Boston; Columbia University Medical Center (K.F.), Tisch Hospital, NYU Langone Medical Center (P.A.-C., W.C.), Bellevue Hospital Center, NYU School of Medicine (P.A.-C., W.C.), and Weill Cornell Medical Center (R.J.W., S.C.) - all in New York; Henry Ford Health, Detroit (J.J., J.H.P.), and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (H.B.A., P.K.P.); University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City (B.A.F., D.A.S.); the University of Texas Lyndon B. Johnson Medical Center (M.K.L.) and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (L.S.K.) - both in Houston; the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson (M.E.K.); Maine Medical Center, Portland (B.C., D.W.C.); Ohio State University Medical Center, Columbus (A.R., S.S.); Rush University Medical Center, Chicago (T.P.P.); UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, Denver (L.F., M.S.); Harbor UCLA Medical Center (D.A.D., A.H.K.), Olive View UCLA Medical Center (G.J.M., D.S., A.K.), and Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center (D.A.T.) - all in Los Angeles; and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville (C.M.T., W.H.S.).
• N. Engl. J. Med. 2020 Nov 12; 383 (20): 1907-1919.

BackgroundAntibiotic therapy has been proposed as an alternative to surgery for the treatment of appendicitis.MethodsWe conducted a pragmatic, nonblinded, noninferiority, randomized trial comparing antibiotic therapy (10-day course) with appendectomy in patients with appendicitis at 25 U.S. centers. The primary outcome was 30-day health status, as assessed with the European Quality of Life-5 Dimensions (EQ-5D) questionnaire (scores range from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicating better health status; noninferiority margin, 0.05 points). Secondary outcomes included appendectomy in the antibiotics group and complications through 90 days; analyses were prespecified in subgroups defined according to the presence or absence of an appendicolith.ResultsIn total, 1552 adults (414 with an appendicolith) underwent randomization; 776 were assigned to receive antibiotics (47% of whom were not hospitalized for the index treatment) and 776 to undergo appendectomy (96% of whom underwent a laparoscopic procedure). Antibiotics were noninferior to appendectomy on the basis of 30-day EQ-5D scores (mean difference, 0.01 points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.001 to 0.03). In the antibiotics group, 29% had undergone appendectomy by 90 days, including 41% of those with an appendicolith and 25% of those without an appendicolith. Complications were more common in the antibiotics group than in the appendectomy group (8.1 vs. 3.5 per 100 participants; rate ratio, 2.28; 95% CI, 1.30 to 3.98); the higher rate in the antibiotics group could be attributed to those with an appendicolith (20.2 vs. 3.6 per 100 participants; rate ratio, 5.69; 95% CI, 2.11 to 15.38) and not to those without an appendicolith (3.7 vs. 3.5 per 100 participants; rate ratio, 1.05; 95% CI, 0.45 to 2.43). The rate of serious adverse events was 4.0 per 100 participants in the antibiotics group and 3.0 per 100 participants in the appendectomy group (rate ratio, 1.29; 95% CI, 0.67 to 2.50).ConclusionsFor the treatment of appendicitis, antibiotics were noninferior to appendectomy on the basis of results of a standard health-status measure. In the antibiotics group, nearly 3 in 10 participants had undergone appendectomy by 90 days. Participants with an appendicolith were at a higher risk for appendectomy and for complications than those without an appendicolith. (Funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute; CODA ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02800785.).Copyright © 2020 Massachusetts Medical Society.

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