More than 70,000 children in the United States have surgery each year to treat appendicitis. As reported in JAMA, a PCORI-funded study found that among children with uncomplicated appendicitis, nonsurgical treatment with antibiotics was successful in more than half of those patients, and compared with surgery initiated shortly after hospital admission, was associated with significantly fewer disability days. However, the results after one year did not meet the threshold success rate specified at the outset of the study.

Uterine fibroids—growths in the uterus that may cause heavy menstrual bleeding, pain, and feelings of abdominal pressure—are common health problems in women of childbearing age. They occur more frequently in African-American women than in women of other races. The PCORI-funded COMPARE-UF study set up a registry of women treated for fibroids to compare multiple outcomes of different treatment options. One study done using information from COMPARE-UF compared two types of uterine fibroid removal: hysterectomy, which is the removal of the uterus, and myomectomy, which is removal of only the fibroids. As published in Fertility and Sterility, both treatments increased quality of life one year after treatment. Depending on whether fibroid removal was done using abdominal or minimally invasive surgery, there were slight or no differences in quality of life.