Amoebic appendicitis

To the Editor: We describe six cases of amoebic appendicitis, encountered during a 15-month period in the Pathology Department of the Royal Darwin Hospital. The patients were all Indigenous Australians and four of them came from remote communities. The average age was 24 years and five of the six were men. They all presented with abdominal pain, fever and right iliac fossa tenderness for up to 6 days. The clinical notes did not indicate the presence of pre-existing dysentery, and no faecal examination was undertaken. Recovery following appendicectomy was uneventful in all the cases. No further follow-up is available.