2005 SAGES Abstracts

POSTER ABSTRACTS
tive procedures on the elderly. Recently laparoscopic cholecystectomy
(LC) has been increasingly accepted as a safe and
effective procedure in elderly patients with gallbladder disease.
Using our large patient database we set out to determine
the safety of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in patients over the
age of 80.
Methods: Using our extensive patient database we identified
the patients that had undergone LC between December 1994-
May 2003. Charts were retrospectively reviewed for age, medical
history, previous surgery, conversion rate, length of stay,
operating time, anesthesia time, intraoperative findings, and
postoperative morbidity and mortality.
Results: A total of 4843 patients underwent LC at Long Island
Jewish Medical Center between December 1994 and May
2003. Of those patients 184 (3.7%) of them were over the age
of 80 (mean age 87.2). We found a significant increase in conversion
rate in the elderly group compared to the younger
patients (12.3% vs. 3.7%). However, when we analyzed the
elective procedures alone the conversion rate was 4.9% not
significantly different from the control group. Morbidity was
significantly increased if conversion to open procedure took
place after 30 minutes of operating time. This was mostly in
the form of wound infection(3% vs. 0.5%). Overall mortality
was higher in the elderly group but not statistically significant
(1.9% vs 1.4%). Other parameters were not significantly different
between the two groups.
Conclusion: We continue to show that LC is a safe procedure
in octogenarian patients. The morbidity and mortality of the
procedure is similar between elderly and young patients.
Every effort should be made to operate under elective conditions
rather than emergent ones. In addition our data strongly
supports early conversion (