It is concluded based on this review of laparoscopic cholecystectomies that the morbidity and mortality rates are similar to open surgery. In addition, the rate of bile duct injuries and leaks is higher than in open cholecystectomy. Furthermore, bile duct injuries can be minimized by lateral retraction of the gallbladder neck and careful dissection of Calot's triangle, the cystic duct-gallbladder junction, and the cystic duct-common bile duct junction.
Summary
The treatment of gallbladder and biliary tract pathology can be quite extensive, ranging from the treatment of simple cholelithiasis to the more complicated metastatic carcinomas. The combination of biliary endoscopy and laparoscopy allows the surgeon to perform minimally invasive procedures for these potentially complicated problems. It is important for the surgeon to be able to perform these procedures and to be able to manage any of the complications. As the surgeon's skill and expertise increases in this area of minimally invasive surgery, this will enable more operations to be done utilizing these techniques, thus decreasing hospitalization costs and allowing patients to return to their normal daily activities more rapidlly.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.