ABSTRACT
Background:
Surgical approach is still controversial in patients with acute cholecystitis: to treat clinically the inflammatory process and operate electively later or to operate immediately on an emergency basis?
Aim:
To test the hypothesis that urgent laparoscopic cholecystectomy in acute cholecystitis has a higher mortality than elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy.
Methods:
From the data available in Datasus, mortality was compared between patients undergoing elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy for cholelithiasis and in urgency. Calculations were made of the relative reduction in risk of death, absolute reduction of risk of death and number needed to treat.
Results:
From 2009 to 2014 in Brazil, there were 250.439 laparoscopic cholecystectomy and 74.6% were electives. Mortality in the emergency group was 4.8 times higher compared to the elective group (0.0023% vs. 0.00048%). Despite the relative reduction in risk of death (RRR) was 83%, in the calculation of absolute risk was found 0.0018 and number needed to treat of 55,555.
Conclusions:
Despite the relative risk reduction for mortality was high comparing elective vs. urgent basis, the absolute risk reduction was minimal, since this outcome is very low in both groups, suggesting that mortality should not have much influence on surgical decision.
HEADINGS :
Laparoscopic cholecystectomy; Cholelithiasis; Cholecystitis