What is a laparoscopic cholecystectomy?
You will be having your gallbladder removed by a technique that is called laparoscopic surgery, better known as keyhole surgery. The term cholecystectomy simply means removal of the gallbladder. Although we have traditionally removed the gallbladder by an open operation through a fairly big cut in the tummy in the past, we can now remove the gallbladder by a keyhole technique (laparoscopic). This involves making a few (usually 4-5) small incisions (between -1 cm) in your abdomen to remove the gallbladder. Whenever we do keyhole surgery, however, there is a small possibility of having to convert to an open operation if the surgery is difficult for some reason; the likelihood of this however is very small (less than 1 in 100 patients that we operate on for gallstones). The operation is performed under general anaesthesia, which involves being put fully to sleep by a specialist doctor (anaesthetist).
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