Oral antibiotics for perforated appendicitis is not recommended.
In the majority of surgical departments in Denmark, the postoperative treatment for acute perforated appendicitis comprises three days of intravenous antibiotics. Recently, it has been proposed that such antibiotic regimen should be replaced by orally administered antibiotics. The aim of this paper was to give an overview of studies on acute perforated appendicitis with postoperative oral antibiotics. Five studies were found in a database search covering the 1966-2009 period. There is no evidence to support a conversion of the postoperative antibiotic regimen from intravenous to oral administration in patients with acute perforated appendicitis.