[The place of micro- and modern mini-laparotomy in the management of biliary calculi]

The authors treated 537 patients biliary stone disease between 1-st january 1991. and 1-st june 1994. With the conventional method of 20 cm of the subcostal incision, they operated 250 patients, among them 17 (6.8%) also had the common bile duct stone. There was no case of mortality and common bile duct injury. The postoperative morbidity was 12.8%. The average days of treatment was 9. With micro- and modern mini-laparotomy 287 cases were operated, 16 (5.5%) of them had common bile duct stones which were extracted during the process of cholecystectomy. In one case transduodenal sphincterectomy was performed. There was no case of mortality and injury of common bile duct. The postoperative morbidity was 10.4%. There was 6 cases of conversion (2.09%). The average period of treatment was 5 days. The treatment of biliary stone disease by micro- or modern minilaparotomy does not cause more danger to the patients than the conventional subcostal method. This approach is suitable for the surgical treatment of all kinds of biliary stone disease. This method is also suitable to extract a stone (stones) from the common bile duct discovered during cholecystectomy. This method has a pleasant cosmetical results.