Minimally Invasive Cholecystolithotomy to Treat Cholecystolithiasis in Children: A Single-center Experience With 23 Cases.

Objective: Minimally invasive cholecystolithotomy is recently popularized treatment that may offer advantages over laparoscopic cholecystectomy, especially in China. However, there are few reports concerning the use of this technique in the pediatric population. This report describes our initial experience with minimally invasive cholecystolithotomy using laparoscopy combined with choledochoscopy to treat cholecystolithiasis in children.

Materials And Methods: A retrospective review of 23 pediatric patients with cholecystolithiasis who underwent minimally invasive cholecystolithotomy using laparoscopy combined with choledochoscopy from January 2009 to December 2015 was performed.

Results: The operations were successful in all 23 cases. None required conversion to conventional laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The average operative time was 68 minutes (range, 45 to 97 min). The average bleeding volume during surgery was 30 mL (range, 10 to 55 mL). The average length of hospital stay was 5.2 days (range, 3 to 7 d). There were no perioperative complications. All patients were followed for 9 to 12 months without any obvious gastrointestinal symptoms. None had a recurrence of stones in the gall bladder.

Conclusions: Minimally invasive cholecystolithotomy using laparoscopy combined with choledochoscopy is a safe and viable technique that may be used successfully in pediatric surgery.