Cholecystectomy in the elderly: clinical outcomes and risk factors

AIM OF THE STUDY: Recent decades have seen a steady increase in the number of elderly patients undergoing cholecystectomy surgery. The objective of this study is to evaluate clinical outcomes in this cohort of patients and to identify any predictive factors correlative with adverse outcomes arising in the postoperative period. METHOD: A retrospective study was conducted regarding patients aged >= 65 years who underwent cholecystectomy surgery. The independent variables considered to be related to the patient were: age, gender, co-morbidities, and severity of cholelithiasis. The clinical variables were type of procedure, length of stay and hospitalization. The outcomes considered were mortality, re-intervention, transfer to intensive care and post-operative complications. RESULTS: 778 patients with an age between 65 and 74 and 508 patients with an age above 75 were reviewed. With the increase of age, patients who underwent cholecystectomy presented greater co-morbidity, more accesses in emergency, more cases of cholecystitis, which led to a higher number of interventions in open surgery. Considering postoperative outcomes: the need for intensive care, postoperative complications and mortality significantly increase in older patients. Negative predictive factors are the presence of co-morbidities, emergency access and cholecystectomy performed in open. CONCLUSIONS: Elderly patients undergoing cholecystectomy are an increased surgical risk group in particular because of the presence of co-morbidities and because of the frequent need to perform an emergency procedure often for complicated lithiasis pathology. This implies a special attention towards these patients, and towards those over 75 considering, when possible, alternative treatments such as percutaneous drainage.