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Surgery for Mild Gallstone Pancreatitis Can Be Safely Performed Within 48 Hours of Admission LOS ANGELES -- February 4, 2010 -- Patients with mild gallstone pancreatitis usually stay in the hospital for several days, waiting for the symptoms to subside, before undergoing surgery to remedy the condition. However, a study published early online and appearing in the April issue of the Annals of Surgery indicates patients may no longer have to wait so long for surgery and could leave the hospital sooner. The study found that surgeons could safely operate on patients with mild gallstone pancreatitis within 48 hours of admission, rather than waiting for the painful inflammation in the pancreas to subside before performing the surgery. “In the study, patients with mild pancreatitis, who underwent surgery within 2 days of admission, left the hospital sooner and had similar favourable outcomes compared with patients who waited several days before surgery,” said lead author Christian de Virgilio, MD, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, California. “The common practice of delaying surgery on patients with mild gallstone pancreatitis should be abandoned because it results in longer and more costly hospital stays.” In the study, surgeons removed the gall bladders of 25 patients with mild gallstone pancreatitis within 48 hours of admission and operated on 24 other patients after lab tests and physical examinations found their enzyme levels had normalised. One patient was excluded from the study after developing other unrelated medical complications. The researchers found that operating on the patients within 48 hours of admission decreased the overall length of hospital stays from 4 to 3 days when compared with the patients who waited for the symptoms to subside before undergoing surgery. “Operating within 48 hours of admission is ideally suited to patients with mild gallstone pancreatitis who don’t demonstrate evidence of cholangitis and don’t require aggressive fluid resuscitation,” said Dr. de Virgilio. SOURCE: Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center E-mail this page to a friend or colleague! To print, use this version