Abstract
Background
Acute cholecystitis is an emergency condition, typically arising from gall bladder stones and often leading to unplanned surgical admissions to hospital. In the UK, gall stone disease accounts for approximately one third of all unplanned general surgical admissions. According to the The Royal College of Surgeons' Commissioning guidance, early management of acute cholecystitis in particular is the key to prevent further development of more serious complications that can lead to mortality (up to 10%). Therefore, urgent admission to secondary care and laparoscopic cholecytectomy are recommended once diagnosis is confirmed .
Conservative management is not recommended as gallbladder inflammation often persists despite medical therapy which can lead to further attacks and risk of developing gall bladder perforation ( mortality in 30% of cases). Early laparoscopic cholecystectomy is also associated with reduced hospital costs and earlier recovery. During the first wave of COVID-19, the guidelines changed in order to limit the admission rates to free up spaces for possible COVID-19 infected patients. Crisis approach entailed conservative management with pain relief, antibiotics plus or minus cholecystostomy. However, reviews of this approach have not been widely published to assess the results and in turn planning our future management approach in case of other COVID-19 surge.
Methods
Our study included all the patients diagnosed with acute cholecystitis who needed surgical intervention in one medical Centre in the UK. The time table of the study is divided into 3 periods the pre- COVID era from 16/12/2019 to 15/03/2020 (group I), then during the first lock down era from 16/03/2020 to 30/06/2020 (group II) and, finally after the ease of the lock down from 01/07/2020 to 02/09/2020 (group III).
Pre- and post-lockdown time periods the CholeQuIC approach was followed while during the lockdown era, patients were initially treated conservatively followed by surgical managemnt in case of failure to improve. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed, however, in difficult cases conversion to open surgery occurred.
The primary outcome was to Compare and perform analysis of the three distinctive periods regarding, delayed presentation, the degree of operative difficulty, which was quantified by analysing the operative time, blood loss, rate of drain insertion and rate of conversion into open surgery. Furthermore, a review of unfavourable intra-operative findings such as extensive adhesion to surrounding organs, hydrops, empyema, gangrene, and/or perforation of the gallbladder was done. The post-operative results were also analysed, according to the length of hospital stay, and the rate of post-operative complications.
Results
Operative difficulty
The mean operative time before the lockdown was 71.6 minutes while it was 81.0 and 78.0 minutes during and post COVID respectively. In terms of conversion to open, the rate reached 10.5 % during the lockdown, while the figures were 4.9% and 3.13% during the pre and after lockdown respectively. Moreover, intra peritoneal drains were used in more than one quarter of the patients (28.9%) during the lockdown era compared to 11.5 % and 12.5% pre and post the lockdown respectively. Considerable blood loss occurred in 10.5%.
Intra-operative findings
During the lockdown, 28.9 % exhibited extensive adhesions between the gall bladder and surrounding structures. This level is almost three times the percentage during the pre and post-lockdown time periods (8.2% and 9.4% respectively). As for gangrenous cholecystitis, it was 18.4 % during the lockdown, 6.6% before and 6.3% after the lockdown respectively.
Post-operative results
Before the lockdown the average LOS was 2.9 days which increased to 8.9 days during the lockdown, followed by a decrease to 2.4 days following the ease of lockdown. The lockdown era depicted the highest rate of post-operative complications (bile leakage 7.9%, missed stones 5.3% and duodenal injury 2.6 %).
Conclusions
During crisis periods tough measures and decisions are made to deal with the situation, however, these decisions can lead to grave consequences on the medical staff and most importantly on patients. As shown in this study and supported by the previous studies, conservative management of acute cholecystitis led to serious complications as many patients were re-admitted for emergency surgery as a result of failure of the non-surgical approach. Moreover, delayed emergency surgery was associated with increased operative difficulties and higher percentage of serious intra and post-operative complications. All this led to longer hospital stay which can prove the failure of this approach. Unfortunately in our Unit, whilst closely studying acute gall bladder disease, we have found that the conservative approach appears to have back-fired and did the exact opposite. Therefore, we believe that there is nil to support conservative treatment of acute cholecystitis in our Unit. We believe that the evidence as displayed suggests that rapid surgery provides best outcome for individual patients and our system, perhaps especially when under strain for other reasons.
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