English

Abstract

Introduction: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a standard and widely usedprocedure in the treatment of chronic cholecystitis for quite a long time now but there is a recentdevelopment in technique because of advent of harmonic scalpel (HS). Thus this study wasconducted with an objective to compare frequency of post-operative complications in patientsundergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy by conventional versus harmonic technique. DataSource: Primary data based on patients presenting with chronic cholecystitis to the surgicaldepartment at tertiary care hospital. Study Design: Randomized Control Trial. Study Setting:The study was conducted in surgical unit-I, Jinnah Hospital Lahore. Duration of Study:Study was conducted in duration of one year i.e. January 2015 to December 2015. Subjects& Methods: After approval from the hospital ethical review board, 400 patients of either sexwith age from 16 to 60 years and a diagnosis of chronic cholecystitis were included usingpurposive non-probability sampling technique. They were then randomly assigned to eitherconventional or harmonic group for laparoscopic cholecystectomy using lottery method ata ratio 1:1. . Information regarding their demographic characteristics and frequency of gallbladder perforation during surgery along with readmission in patients was noted in a structuredproforma and data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.0. Results: The mean age of patientswas 48.19 ± 6.484 years with about 156 (39%) male patients while 244 patients (61%) werefemale. About 15 (7.5%) patients in harmonic group and 16 (8%) patients in conventionalgroup of laparoscopic cholecystectomy had gall bladder perforation during the procedurewhile 20 (10%) patients of harmonic group and 27 (13.5%) patients in conventional group werereadmitted. On application of chi square test it was seen that the differences were statisticallyinsignificant in both groups for the complications related to the procedure. Conclusion: It canbe concluded from this study that both treatments are equally effective in terms of gall bladderperforation and rate of readmission. Thus, any of the techniques can be selected without muchfear of complications depending upon the health care facility and financial constraints of healthsystem in a resource depleted developing country.