Bridge treatment for early cholecystectomy in geriatric patients with acute cholecystitis: Percutaneous cholecystostomy

BACKGROUND: The main cause of acute cholecystitis (AC) is gallstones, and the incidence of gallstones in elderly patients is high. METHODS: In this study, we aimed to investigate the efficacy of percutaneous cholecystostomy (PC) before early cholecystectomy in geriatric patients with AC. This retrospective study included 85 patients undergoing laparoscopic or conventional cholecystectomy during early stage of calculous AC. RESULTS: All patients were over 65 years old and were divided into two groups: Group I, PC plus early cholecystectomy and Group II, only cholecystectomy without PC. Data on age, sex, status of PC before surgery, postoperative complications, postoperative mortality, surgical method, and postoperative hospitalization duration were recorded in our study. The average age in the groups I and II was 75.7 +/- 7.5 and 73.7 +/- 7.2 years, respectively, indicating insignificant difference (p=0.223). Although postoperative complication rate was two fold in the non-PC group, the PC plus cholecystectomy group has a few complications (p=0.032). Postoperative mortality was evidently lower in patients who first underwent PC and followed by cholecystectomy (p=0.017). The average hospitalization duration in groups I and II were 5.6 +/- 2.4 days and 11.2 +/- 7.7 days, respectively (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Urgent laparoscopic cholecystectomy is still the best surgical treatment modality for calculous AC. Further, our study results showed that in geriatric patients, bridge treatment, such as PC, can be useful for reducing postoperative complication rates.