Complications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in China: an analysis of 39,238 cases

To investigate the complications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in China.

All Chinese articles about laparoscopic cholecystectomy published between April 1994 and November 1995 were identified through CMCC (Chinese Medical Computerized Contents). From more than 600 titles, 105 articles were screened for analysis. Another 21 articles from the 6th Biliary Surgical Congress and 300 cases from the General Hospital of PLA were added. A total of 39,238 cases of laparoscopic cholecystectomy from 91 hospitals were studied.

Severe complications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy were identified in 409 (1.04%) patients, including bile duct injury (in 0.32% of patients), postoperative cystic duct leak (0.11%), postoperative bile leak (0.20%), peritoneal abscess (0.07%), bowel injury (0.06%) and postoperative hemorrhage (0.1%). Fourteen postoperative deaths (0.04%) resulted from operative injury.

The data demonstrate that laparoscopic cholecystectomy is an operation associated with low morbidity and mortality rate, but bile duct injury is still a major problem. Complications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy can be minimized by improving operative procedure.