Evaluation of the management of acute cholecystitis

✍ Scribed by R. A. Payne

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1969
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 544 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0007-1323
• DOI: 10.1002/bjs.1800560311

✦ Synopsis

ACUTE cholecystitis remains a common emergency in spite of an increasing volume of elective surgery for the treatment of gall-stones. In 1966 acute cholecystitis was the second commonest emergency admitted to the North Middlesex Hospital, the first being acute appendicitis with 210 cases, then acute cholecystitis with 79 cases, followed by 65 cases of intestinal obstruction. While satisfactory results are obtained by the conservative management of the disease, the desirability of this method, compared with early surgical intervention, is still disputed. I n an attempt to assess the advantages of early surgical intervention compared with a conservative regime, Table I.-AGE RANGE OF PATIENTS Age No. of Patients 20-30 42 31-40 91 41-50 170 < I 4 0 286