Bile spillage during lap cholecystectomy comes with a price

Bile spillage that happens during laparoscopic gallbladder removal is a known problem, but a large study has put some numbers to quantify the risks to patients.

A research team at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, conducted a prospective study of 1,001 such operations to look at the impact of bile spillage. They found that wound infection rates in cases involving bile spillage were almost three times higher than were those without spillage and resulting hospital stays were 50% longer, according to an article in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

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The study involved adults who had laparoscopic and laparoscopic converted to open cholecystectomy at the academic hospital during May 2010-March 2017. The latter category accounted for 95 patients, a 9.5% conversion rate. Overall, bile was spilled in 591 patients (59%), with empyema in 86 (8.6%), hydrops in 62 (6.2%), and clear bile spillage in the remainder. Bile spillage along with gallstone spillage occurred in 202 patients (20.2%), with recovery of all spilled gallstones in 145 (71.8%) of those cases.