Evaluation of the Validity of Endoscopic Transpapillary Gallbladder Drainage for Acute Cholecystitis Based on the Tokyo Guidelines 2018.

GOALS: We evaluated the validity of endoscopic transpapillary gallbladder drainage (ETGBD) as a bridging therapy prior to elective Lap-C for the patients with acute cholecystitis (AC).

BACKGROUND

The Tokyo Guidelines 2018 recommend early laparoscopic cholecystectomy (Lap-C) for patients with AC, however, some patients require the preoperative drainage because of inadequate for early Lap-C du to background and comorbidities.

STUDY: We performed a retrospective cohort analysis using data from our hospital records from 2018-2021. In total, 71 cases of 61 patients with AC underwent ETGBD.

RESULTS

The technical success rate was 85.9%. Patients in the failure group had more complicated branching of the cystic duct. The length of time until feeding was started and until WBC levels normalized, and the length of hospital stay were significantly shorter in the success group. The median waiting period for surgery was 39 days in the ETGBD success cases. The median operating time, amount of bleeding, and length of postoperative hospital stay were 134 min, 83.2g, and 4 days, respectively. In patients who underwent Lap-C, the waiting period for surgery and the operating time were similar between the ETGBD success and failure groups. However, the temporary discharge period after drainage and the length of postoperative hospital stay were significantly longer in the patients with ETGBD failure.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study revealed that ETGBD has equivalent efficacy prior to elective Lap-C despite some challenges that lower its success rate. Preoperativ ETGBD can improve patient quality of life by eliminating the need for a drainage tube.