COMPLICATIONS OF LAPAROSCOPIC CHOLECYSTECTOMY IN CHINA - AN ANALYSIS OF 39,238 CASES

Objective To investigate the complications of laparoscopic cholecystec tomy in China. Methods All Chinese articles about laparoscopic cholecy stectomy published between April 1994 and November 1995 were identifie d through CMCC (Chinese Medical Computerized Contents). From more than 600 titles, 105 articles were screened for analysis. Another 21 artic les from the 6th Biliary Surgical Congress and 300 cases from the Gene ral Hospital of PLA were added. A total of 39 238 cases of laparoscopi c cholecystectomy from 91 hospitals were studied. Results Severe compl ications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy were identified in 409 (1.04% ) patients, including bile duct injury (in 0.32% of patients), postope rative cystic duct leak (0.11%), postoperative bile leak (0.20%), peri toneal abscess (0.07%), bowel injury (0.06%) and postoperative hemorrh age (0.1%). Fourteen postoperative deaths (0.04%) resulted from operat ive injury. Conclusions The data demonstrate that laparoscopic cholecy stectomy is an operation associated with low morbidity and mortality r ate, but bile duct injury is still a major problem. Complications of l aparoscopic cholecystectomy can be minimized by improving operative pr ocedure.