[Complications of celioscopic cholecystectomy in 2006 patients]

The development of laparoscopic cholecystectomy is only justified if it can ensure the good results obtained by laparotomy. The purpose of this work is to study all complications which occurred in a homogeneous group of patients. From May 1988 to January 1993, we operated on 2006 patients by laparoscopy (724 men and 1282 women) with a mean age of 50.6 years. Signs of stones in the common bile duct were noted in 4.1% and acute cholecystitis was detected in 12.5%. A conversion to normal laparotomy was necessary in 2.1% of patients. All complications were systematically investigated restrospectively in any patient hospitalised for more than five days. Residual stones in the common bile duct were not taken into consideration when they were not complications obviously related to the operation. We observed five intraoperative complications (4 hemorrhages, 1 ileum puncture) and 40 postoperative complications (25 non biliary and 15 biliary). The 25 non biliary complications consisted of: 1 death by pulmonary embolism, 9 hemorrhages, 4 cases of acute pancreatitis, 4 subphrenic abscesses, 2 colon punctures, 2 parietal complications, 1 ulcer perforation, 1 myocardial infarction and 1 phlebitis. The 15 biliary complications consisted of: 3 lateral punctures of the common bile duct, 9 fistulas of the cystic duct (4 with a residual stone in the common bile duct and 5 without), 2 punctures of an abnormal right hepatic duct, one of which was treated by "Roux en Y loop" intestinal diversion, and a late stenosis of the common bile duct.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)