文摘
Background Since the advent of laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) there has been continued debate regarding the management of acute cholecystitis with either early or delayed LC. Nearly all studies have demonstrated that early LC has a significantly shorter total length of hospital stay compared with delayed LC. Although previous randomized controlled trials and meta-analysis have shown clinical outcomes to favour early surgery, clinical practice continues to vary significantly worldwide. In addition, there is much confusion in the optimal timing for early LC with definitions of early varying from 72 h to 7 days. There have been numerous case–control studies investigating the timing of LC in acute cholecystitis. The aim of this paper is to pool the results from all case–control studies to investigate outcomes including mortality rates, complication rates, length of hospital stay and conversion rates to open procedures.