Avoiding serious complications in laparoscopic cholecystectomy--lessons learned from an experience of 2428 cases

Over a three-and-a-half year period, we performed 2428 cases of laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) and encountered 11 cases of serious procedure-related complications, including bile duct injuries in 4 patients, postoperative bleeding requiring laparotomy and haemostasis in 3 patients, bile leakage from the cystic duct stump, jejunal injury related to puncture, intraoperative injury to the duodenum and subdiaphragmatic abscess in 1 patient each respectively. Six patients required re-hospitalisation including 2 patients with pancreatitis, 1 patient with Ascaris cholangitis, 1 patient with residual stone of the common bile duct (CBD) after laparoscopic CBD exploration, 1 patient with a stone in the CBD after LC, and 1 patient with bile leakage from the cystic duct stump and peritonitis. Of the 2428 patients treated, there was only 1 operative mortality. This patient developed frequent episodes of supraventricular tachycardia. She was found to have pnuemonia on the 21st postoperative day and she died. Apart from this, 1 other patient was found to have primary cancer of the liver 1 month after LC. Based on our experience, we think that LC is safe for patients with benign disease of the gallbladder.