How to Manage Peritonitis

Peritonitis is inflammation of the peritoneum, which is is the membrane that forms the lining of the abdominal cavity — it covers most of the intra-abdominal organs. When the peritoneum becomes infected and inflamed, it can be quite painful. The following guide will help to manage peritonitis and its symptoms.

Instructions

Managing and Treatment of Peritonitis

• 1

  Realize that peritonitis refers to inflammation of the peritoneal lining or cavity, as may occur with either a perforation or by spread of infection through the wall of one of the abdominal organs. This is a serious condition, and often requires emergency surgery. It may be localized or generalized, generally has an acute course, and may depend on either infection or on a non-infectious process.

• 2

  Depending on the severity of the patient's state, the management of peritonitis may include: General supportive measures such as vigorous intravenous re-hydration and correction of electrolyte disturbances.

• 3

  Administer antibiotics intravenously, but they may also be infused directly into the peritoneum. The treatment and management of peritonitis often consists of multiple drugs and should be targeted against the most likely agents, depending on the cause of peritonitis. Once one or more agents are actually isolated, therapy will of course be targeted on them.

• 4

  Perform surgery to allow a full exploration and lavage of the peritoneum, as well as to correct any anatomical damage which may have caused peritonitis. The exception to this is spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, which does not benefit from surgery.

• 5

  Treat the illness. If properly treated, typical cases of surgically correctable peritonitis have a mortality rate of about less than 10 percent in otherwise healthy patients. This number rises to about 40 percent in the elderly, and/or in those with significant underlying illness, as well as in cases that present late, after 48 hours. If untreated, generalized peritonitis is almost always fatal.