1 Surgical Service, The Children's Hospital, Boston, Mass. and Department of Surgery, Harvary Medical School.
Ten cases of deep or subfascial abscesses of the abdominal wall in children have been presented.
The diagnosis rests upon the finding of a firm, irregular, non-fluctuant, usually nontender mass, moving with and involving the deeper or subfascial portion of the abdominal wall, and accompanied by a leucocytosis with an increase of the polymorphonuclear neutrophilic leucocytes in the differential count.
The infectious agent is usually Staph. aureus. The differential diagnosis is considered and the treatment indicated.
Submitted on March 1, 1948