MILD TO MODERATE ACUTE BILIARY PANCREATITIS;

Abstract

Introduction: Acute biliary pancreatitis is a serious complication of biliarycalculous disease and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Incidence is moreoften in females and cause is the gall stones in majority of the cases. Definitive treatment ischolecystectomy and with the advancement of minimal invasive surgery, laparoscopiccholecystectomy has been considered as a gold standard for the management of acute BiliaryPancreatitis. The optimal timing when to perform laparoscopic cholecystectomy is still underdebate. Many surgeons recommend early surgery whereas others are in favor of delayedsurgery. This study is carried out to compare the timing of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in casesof acute biliary pancreatitis. Objective: To compare the frequency of conversion fromlaparoscopic to open cholecystectomy in early versus delayed laparoscopic cholecystectomy inmild to moderate acute biliary pancreatitis. Study design: Randomised Control trial (RCT).Setting: Department of surgery, Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi. Duration: Six months, fromJanuary 2010 to June 2012. Material and methods: 306 patients, diagnosed as mild tomoderate acute Biliary Pancreatitis were randomly allocated into two groups for laparoscopiccholecystectomy. Those who were operated within two weeks of index hospital admission werelabeled as Early laparoscopic cholecystectomy (EC) group whereas those undergoing surgeryafter 02 weeks of index hospital admission were considered as Delayed laparoscopiccholecystectomy group(DC). Conversion rate from laparoscopic to open cholecystectomy wascompared in two groups. Results: Out of 153 patients enrolled as EC group, 138 were female and15 were male patients. Mean age was 39.19 ± 11.25years where as in DC group , there were 134female and 19 male patients in a total of 153 patients, and the mean age was 39.54 ±10.37 years.Conversion from laparoscopic surgery to open cholecystectomy was 8.5%(13 patients) and13.1%(20 patients) in EC and DC groups respectively. The overall conversion rate was 10.8%.There was no statistical significance between conversion rate of the two groups. (p = 0.197)Conclusions: Acute Biliary Pancreatitis should be managed by laparoscopic cholecystectomyregardless of the time elapsed since the start of symptoms. There is no statistical significance ofconversion rate from laparoscopic to open cholecystectomy associated with the timing ofsurgical intervention in the case of acute Biliary Pancreatitis.