Surgical treatment of the gallbladder and common bile duct by minimally invasive surgery

The laparoscopic cholecystectomy is the most used minimally invasive surgic al technique. Seventy-five percent of all gallstone diseases are actually t reated by this procedure, as proved by an impressive comparison of Swiss, A ustrian and German data. More than 265,000 cholecystectomies are analyzed. Twelve percent of all operations are performed in an acute situation, intra operative complications are found in 1%; the postoperative complications is 5%. The lethality in all countries is between 0.1 and 0.2%.