Assessment of clinical, hematological, radiological parameters for prediction of difficult laparoscopic cholecystectomy at a tertiary health care centre

Abstract

Background: Since its introduction in the mid 1980’s, laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) has been widely used for symptomatic cholelithiasis. In recent years it has been considered as a gold standard for treatment of symptomatic cholelithiasis. Recent studies have reported that the rate of conversion of LC to open cholecystectomy (OC) is 1.5-19%. The aim of the present study was to predict the difficulties of performing laparoscopic cholecystectomy in symptomatic cholelithiasis. Further, the possibility of converting LC to open cholecystectomy was also investigated using various haematological, clinical, and radiological tool such as USG.Methods: The present prospective study was conducted in in Nehru Hospital of BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur, India over a period of 12 months on in-patients from various surgical wards undergoing LC. The patients were primarily divided into two groups consisting of those undergoing LC and those converted to OC respectively. Parameters like gender, age, body mass index, associated complains, total leukocyte count (TLC) and levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were assessed as potential risk factors for conversion.Results: 50 patients were considered for this study. Results indicated that rate of conversion of LC to OC was found to be maximum for patients belonging to male gender, 31-40 years old, were obese, had previous history of upper abdominal surgery and had raised levels of TLC and ALP. Patients having multiple stones and contracted gall bladder also had a higher incidence of conversion to OC.Conclusions: From results obtained in this study, it could be concluded that parameters like age, gender, obesity, history of upper abdominal surgery, raised levels of TLC and ALP, incidences of multiple stones and contracted gall bladder posed significant risk for LC and acted as predictors for conversion to OC.