Challenging more than a century of medical tradition, a UCLA doctor is exploring whether antibiotics can be an effective alternative to surgery for treating appendicitis.
Dr. David Talan, an emergency medicine and infectious diseases specialist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, is study director of a 1,500-patient, $12-million national clinic trial. It’s the largest randomized clinical trial comparing antibiotics to surgery for treating inflammation of the appendix.