[Laparoscopic appendicectomy in 2013--a barely tolerated procedure turning into a gold standard operation?]

Laparoscopic appendectomy is one of the first developed minimally invasive surgical procedures, nevertheless its judgement is contradictory up to the present day as far as its advantages and indications are concerned.

The authors of this article give an overview and analyse the relevant literature concerning laparoscopic appendectomy and the data of patients on whom appendectomy was performed from 01/01/2005 to 30/09/2013 with laparoscopic and open technique.

At the Surgical Department of the Uzsoki Hospital 1214 patients had appendectomy because of acute appendicitis from 01/01/2005 to 30/09/2013. The applied surgical procedure was laparoscopy with 1065 patients (87.73%) and the open technique with 149 patients (12.27%). Since January 2006 our main principle has been that in case of appendicitis the primary technique to be applied is laparoscopic appendectomy. We were forced to conversion with 16.5% of patients and as the operational experience of the department grows, the proportion of conversions tends to decrease.

The advantages of laparoscopic appendectomy as opposed to open surgery have become obvious in the past decade, and the procedure may be recommended for all age groups. In case acute appendicitis is suspected the primary procedure to be applied in our department is the laparoscopic operation, the results of which are at least as good as that of open appendectomy. The routine application of laparoscopic appendectomy provides an excellent basis for the acquisition of advanced laparoscopic surgery thus appendectomy will not lose its training character due to the laparoscopic approach.