Evaluation of Preoperative Scoring System for Predicting Difficult Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) is established as the gold standard for benign gallbladder disease. This study was done for the evaluation of preoperative scoring system given by Randhawa and Pujahari considering various preoperative parameters to predict difficulty in LC.

Preoperative prediction of difficult LC using a scoring system considering various preoperative factors in elective/interval LC to predict difficult gallbladder.

A prospective study of 120 patients admitted for LC from January 2020 to June 2021 was analyzed.

All the patients were evaluated on the basis of Randhawa and Pujahari scoring system with the following variables: age >50 years, male sex, body mass index 25.1-27.5 and >27.5 kg/m², previous abdominal surgery, prior hospitalization for gallstone disease, palpable gallbladder, gallbladder wall thickening, impacted stone, and pericholecystic collection. Each variable had given a score. Based on these findings, the surgical procedure was defined as easy, difficult, and very difficult.

One hundred and twenty cases satisfying the inclusion criteria were studied comparing different variables and assigned preoperative scoring. A score >5 was considered significant and compared with intraoperative findings. Out of 53 patients having preoperative scores >5, 40 were difficult gallbladders and 13 were easy to operate. Prediction came true in 93.0% of difficult cases and 83.1% of easy cases.

From this study, we can conclude that the preoperative scoring system is statistically reliable to predict difficulty in LC in the majority of the cases (area under receiver operator characteristics = 0.935).