Bladder injury during laparoscopic surgery

The objective of this review is to present the incidence of latrogenic bladder injury associated with diagnostic and/or operative laparoscopic surgery; to determine the type of primary laparoscopic operation, the time at which the reported injuries occurred, the location of injuries, and the method(s) used to repair those injuries; to decide which laparoscopic procedure carries the highest risk for bladder injury; and to establish the most frequent surgical instruments with which injuries happened. World literature published between 1970 and 1996 was reviewed. The appropriate Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms were selected and used in a search of the MEDLINE, ACOGNET, OVID Compact Disk Version database. A total of 1372 articles on laparoscopic surgery complications were reviewed. Of that number, a total of 77 articles identified bladder injuries, and these were analyzed for the objectives of this study. There are a wide range of bladder injuries during laparoscopic procedures. In the studied articles, the incidence of bladder injury during laparoscopic procedures ranged from 0.02 to 8.3 percent of cases. Most frequently, these injuries occurred during laparoscopic-assisted vaginal hysterectomy. Sharp electrosurgical dissection was the leading instrument causing injury. An intraoperative diagnosis of bladder injury was made in 53.24 percent of all bladder injury cases. The bladder dome was the most commonly injured structure. Less than half (29.87 percent) of the bladder injuries were corrected laparoscopically.