Norman Swan

The appendix is funny.

It's kind of part of the large bowel, the colon, the first part of the colon.

It's also connected to the last part of the small bowel, where there's quite a lot of immune tissue, lymphatic tissue.

In the small bowel, they're called Peyer's patches.

It's what get infected during typhoid, for example.

And this immune tissue does spread into the appendix and the appendix, like the tonsil, is thought to be an immune organ.

It's also thought to be a safe house for the microbiome.

Really?

Our gut bacteria and other organisms, which the theory is they're ready to repopulate the bowel if the bowel gets damaged in any way and needs to be reinfected, if you like, with microorganisms that come from the appendix.

That's theory.

But when they look at the microbiome of the appendix, it's often quite rich.

And of course, that's one reason why it gets infected.

It can get blocked and then infected behind it.

Yes, I knew there were surgeries that you needed to have to be on Antarctica.

So you're going to have to appropriate it on yourself?

What a hero.

I mean, these days, the option exists to treat it with antibiotics.

We recently covered this on our sister podcast, The Health Report.

And the worry has been because when you get cancer in the appendix, it's a particularly unpleasant kind of cancer.

And it's not one of those cancers that's been rising.