Abstract

Liver abscess is a disease of frequent occurrence. Treatment modalities include both medical and surgical. However surgical drainage is the mainstay of treatment. With advent of ultrasound, percutaneous aspiration is becoming popular. Subjects from hospitals were grouped into those who underwent percutaneous aspiration and those who underwent pigtail catheter insertion. Both the groups are compared with the parameters like duration of hospital stay, duration to achieve symptomatic relief, duration of IV antibiotics required. A total of 106 subjects were studied. 52 of them underwent repeated percutaneous aspiration. 54 of them underwent pigtail catheter insertion. It is observed that pigtail catheter insertion is a better modality for larger abscess when compared to percutaneous aspiration in terms of duration of hospital stay, need for iv antibiotics and duration to achieve symptomatic relief.