COOPERATIVE STUDY ON BILIARY SURGERY MORT ALITY IN 17 HOSPITALS DURING 1990

A survey about surgical procedures performed in 1990 was answered by 1 7 surgical services. With these data the operative mortality of biliar y surgery was analyzed. During 1990, 39,643 patients were subjected to major surgery of which 9,654 (24.3%) corresponded to benign biliary t ract diseases. Forty nine percent of patients had chronic cholecystiti s, 36% acute cholecystitis and 16% choledocholithiasis. Global mortali ty of these procedures was 0.58% and mortalities for chronic cholecyst itis, acute cholecystitis and choledocholithiasis were 0.06, 0.6 and 2 % respectively. These numbers increased significantly in patients over 60 years old, are lower than those reported 10 years ago and could be useful as ''gold standards'' for laparoscopic cholecystectomy