Urgent abdominal disorders are a daily work routine at surgical departments. Therefore, all surgeons are familiar with the problematics, including all its pitfalls, e.g. high morbidity rates and mortality rates of the patients managed. The authors record urgent abdominal disorders mortality rates as well as rates of serious surgical complications requiring re-operations and their effect on the patients‘ prognosis. The trial group includes 1861 patients urgently operated during 2001–2004. 36 patients (1.9%) underwent re-laparotomies. Peritonitis in some form (50%), dehiscence of the laparotomy (31.2%), necrosis of the intestine, ileus, bleeding and some less frequent complications, were the most frequent indications for re-laparotomies. The thirty-day mortality rate in patients, operated for urgent abdominal disorders, was 4.8%. In the re-operated group, the mortality rate reached 19.4%.

        Key words: urgent abdominal disorders (acute abdomen) – mortality rates – complications – re-laparotomy