Introduction:

Acute abdomen is a frequent cause of hospital admission in geriatric patients.

Objective:

To characterize the occurrence of acute surgical abdomen in the geriatric patient in a general surgery service.

Methods:

An observational, descriptive, longitudinal and cross-sectional study was carried out with 169 patients. The data were obtained from the medical records of Manuel Ascunce Domenech University Hospital in Camagüey, from January 2014 to December 2016, and were processed using descriptive statistics, relating some variables in a noninferential way.

Results:

52.2% of the patients were men. 42.6% were aged between 60 and 69 years. 28.9% presented intestinal occlusion as an etiology. There were 39.5% of complications, 54.5% of which were infectious. Mortality was 22.5%. 26.6% of the deceased had intestinal obstruction.

Conclusions:

Almost one tenth of the patients died, with fibrinopurulent peritonitis and septic shock being the most frequent causes of death. Intestinal occlusion as a cause of acute abdomen appeared to influence mortality in the sample studied.

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