[Cholelithiasis--laparoscopy or laparotomy?]

Between 10% and 15% of the adult population have gallstones and therefore symptomatic cholelithiasis is the second most common indication for surgery in general practice. It's diagnosis depends on the patients history, clinical findings, laboratory tests and ultrasound. In case of symptomatic gallstones surgery offers the only permanent cure and specific complications due to gallstones such as ileus or fistula are becoming rare. With the introduction of minimal invasive surgery at the end of this century laparoscopic cholecystectomy is now considered to be the standard treatment for symptomatic gallstones. This approach can be offered to > 90% of patients in elective cases and in between 60%-80% of patients having acute cholecystitis with a low morbidity and mortality rate. The main advantages of the laparoscopic approach are the overall increased patients comfort with less postoperative pain, shorter hospital stay, recovery and off work time. Although the rate of common bile duct injury appears to be increased using this minimal invasive approach, this rate is still sufficiently small to justify the use of laparoscopic cholecystectomy for symptomatic disease. Open cholecystecomy remains the treatment of choice for complicated gallstone disease (i.e. cancer, Mirizzi syndrome, severe inflammation) and high risk patients. In case of acute cholecystitis the laparoscopic treatment with all it's advantages may also be offered to many patients. However, in those cases the conversion rate to the open approach may be markedly increased which has not to be considered as a complication of the laparoscopic approach but as a maximization of safety and effectiveness of the treatment.