Introduction:

It is crucial the timely detection of a new infection or the persistence of it to improve the survival rates, there is no index that can determine the need for relaparotomy.

Objective:

To evaluate the diagnostic certainty of the model elaborated by Kiewiet-Van Ruler.

Method:

A retrospective, descriptive, cross-sectional study, patients diagnosed with abdominal sepsis who underwent exploratory laparotomy between January 2013 to and May 2015.

Results:

We included 109 patients, 63 male patients and 46 female patients. Mortality of 16.5%. 68 cases had a score lower than or equal to 19, of which 17 patients (43%) did need to reoperate. The second group with a score higher than 20 was 41 patients, of which 22 (56%) required reoperation. In the individual analysis of the variables, a significant value was determined in five of them, with p < 0.05. Only one variable (hemoglobin < 8.1 mg/dl) in the chi-square test and confidence interval was not significant and I do not help so much to predict reoperation.

Conclusions:

The utility of the model proposed by Kiewiet-Van Ruler results in an acceptable prediction value for re laparotomy.