Cholecystectomy is considered to be the treatment of choice in symptomatic biliary lithiasis. Lately, due to medical progress, classic cholecystectomy has been gradually replaced by laparoscopic cholecystectomy and by mini cholecystectomy. Therefore, it is very important to determine certain preoperative factors which might predict the conversion of mini cholecystectomy (MC) into classic cholecystectomy (CC).
Material and method: The possibility of selecting high-risk conversion patients has important clinical implications, both for the surgeon and for the patient. Differentiating preoperative risk allows the surgeon to inform the patient about a high conversion risk to CC, and about the ensuing consequences: longer hospitalization period, longer postoperative recovery, greater costs. All the patients were examined by ultrasonography. The tests recorded six parameters: the diameter of the biliary duct (mm), the number of calculi, the diameter of the largest calculus (mm), the contracted aspect of the gallbladder, the distance between the tegument and the gallbladder fundus (cm), the distance between the tegument and the cystic duct (cm). All the variables were introduced into an initial model, which was checked using the colinearity method and significant observations, and subsequently reduced by eliminating insignificant predictive factors, revealed by Wald tests.
Results: The significant predictive conversion factors to CC, quantified on the basis of regression analysis, are: age > 70, calculus with a diameter > 20 mm, biliary duct with a diameter > 6 mm, contracted gallbladder, distance between the tegument and gallbladder fundus > 7.2 cm, distance between the tegument and cystic duct > 17.1 cm.
Conclusion: Being a procedure that can be carried out on an outpatient basis and with rather low costs, ultrasonography plays a very important role in the preoperative prediction of converting MC to CC.