[Treatment of acute cholecystitis with emergent and early cholecystectomy]

Views regarding optimal treatment of acute cholecystitis still remain controversial. There is general agreement only when advanced inflammation threatens the patient's life and urgent operation is a necessity. In other forms of inflammation it is possible to make an early cholecystectomy or proceed by conservative methods and make the operation later as a planned operation. A number of comparative investigations revealed that in both procedures the frequency of postoperative complications and the lethality are roughly equal. The advantages of early cholecystectomy comprise: a shorter time of treatment, lower costs of treatment, a shorter period of hospitalization, a shorter period of work incapacity, and last not least, also a favourable psychological effect when the unpleasant expectation of the planned operation is eliminated. In the authors' department it was confirmed in a six-year study that early surgery is justified in acute cholecystitis. Therefore the authors proceed with this trend. The results of their work, consistent with the results of others, justify this view.