Laparoscopic cholecystectomy: experience of two decades in the military hospital of Cuenca, Ecuador

Objective: to identify the socio-demographic and clinical factors in laparoscopic cholecystectomy in two decades of experience in the Military Hospital of the city of Cuenca. Cholecystectomy is the most common surgery to treat pathologies such as cholelithiasis, acute cholecystitis and vesicular polyposis, currently the laparoscopic technique is the treatment of choice. Materials and Methods: a descriptive, retrospective study of patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy in the last two decades; we worked with 468 clinical records that met the inclusion criteria.. Results: 61,8% were women and 38,2% were men with a mean age of 50,77 years and standard deviation (SD) of 0,727. The surgical indications were cholelithiasis 60,2%, acute cholecystitis 29,2%, vesicular polyposis 4,7%, choledocholithiasis 4,5%, sclerotrophic vesicle 0,9%. The postoperative stay was 80,6% less than three days and 19.4% equal to or greater than 4 days; with an average of 1,09 and DS = 0,292. The conversion percentage to open surgery was 0,4%. The surgical time was 50,2% within 31-60 min and 46,2% more than 60 minutes with an average of 42,43min and DS = 0,564. When the age and operative time were related, it was evidenced that in those older than 60 years, they had more days of hospitalization with statistical significance, with a value of p = 0,0006. Conclusion: laparoscopic cholecystectomy decreases the operative and hospitalization times, contributing directly to the decrease in morbidity and mortality due to this type of pathologies and allowing health services in developing countries to improve the quality of care for their populations.