Objective: To compare laparoscopic with open cholecystectomy.
Design: Prospective random control trial.
Setting: Central Hospital of Akershus, Nordbyhagen, Norway.
Subjects: 74 consecutive patients due to undergo elective cholecystecomy between October 1990 and June 1991.
Interventions: Two patients were excluded from randomisation, and two were withdrawn after randomisation. The remaining 70 were randomly allocated to open or laparoscopic cholecystectomy (n = 35 in each group).
Main outcome measures: Duration of operation and postoperative stay in hospital, amount of postoperative pain, incidence of complications, and duration of convalescence and sick leave.
Results: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy took twice as long as open (median [range] 100 [52-180] minutes compared with 50 [15-115], p < 0.01), but patients stayed in hospital half the time (2 [1-9] days compared with 4 [2-22], p < 0.01); required less opiate analgesia (4 [0-20] doses compared with 6 [0-13], p = 0.02; took less sick leave (11 [4-267] days (n = 18) compared with 34 [20-48] (n = 22), p < 0.01); and spent less time in convalescence (8 [3-40] days (n = 17) compared with 49 [10-247] (n = 12), p < 0.01). There were six complications in the laparoscopy group and seven in the open cholecystectomy group.
Conclusion: Because of the significant differences between laparoscopic and open cholecystectomy we have now adopted the laparoscopic method as our standard, but we think that we can improve our results further by refining our operative techniques and giving our patients more information.