appendectomy in UC

I got my hands on some medical news

here is what it says

AGW 2011, Brisbane: In two lively
but mostly light-hearted debates,
it was concluded that chromoendoscopy
was best for CRC
surveillance in chronic colitis, and
appendectomy might be a valid
treatment for ulcerative colitis.
In the first stoush, Professor
William Connell was ousted
by Dr Rupert Leong, with the
audience almost unanimously
agreeing with Dr Leong that
chromoendoscopy was superior
to white-light endoscopy.
Professor Connell mostly argued
that random biopsies should not
yet be abandoned, since chromoendoscopy
did not have a high
enough negative predictive value.
But Dr Leong argued forcefully
that there was no point using white
light when the evidence clearly
demonstrated that chromoendoscopy
detected more lesions.
Adjudicating the debate, Professor
Michael Kamm pointed out it
was odd to have Professor Connell
arguing against chromoendoscopy,
since he was chair of the committee
that produced the Australian
guidelines recommending its use.
In the second debate, Professor
Terry Bolin was up
against GESA Professor
Michael Grimm.
Professor Bolin spent his entire
talk presenting the results of a case
series documenting appendectomy
in the treatment of ulcerative colitis.
The trial consisted of 70 patients
with a history of proctitis. There
was improvement in 80% of patients
and 20% eventually came off
all therapy after up to 12 months.
“Appendectomy may have
a therapeutic benefit and
needs consideration as firstline
therapy,” he concluded.
Professor Grimm said the available
epidemiological data showed
an interesting but uncertain connection
between past appendicitis
and protection against colitis, but
no connection to appendectomy.
With the audience appearing
to be split evenly on who should
win the debate, Professor Kamm
said he didn’t want to discourage
Professor Bolin from his research
and so ruled the debate a tie.

I heard of that theory too Sue. For a while the docs didn't know what the function of the appendix was. They thought it was an extra and useless "organ". But than I guess some studies were conducted (I don't know the exact details) that stated that the appendix works in the same function as the tonsils. To act as a filter. And when that filter goes defunct, it fails to do it's function properly and causes issues.