Laparoscopic cholecystectomy in obese patients

Background: Obesity has been considered as a relative contraindication to laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Aim: Evaluating the safety of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in obese patients. Patients and methods: The study was performed in Al-Jomhoory Teaching Hospital, Mosul City. From July 2004 to January 2015. This is a prospective study included 1145 patients who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy. All patients from Mosul province, were divided according to the body mass index into two groups. Group I included 141 patients (12.3%) who were obese (BMI more than 30), and group II, included 1004 non-obese (87.7%) (BMI less than 30). Peroperative and Postoperative complications, conversion rate, and hospital stay were compared between these two groups. Results: There was no difference between obese and non-obese groups in preoperative complications, except Subcutaneous insufflations which occurred in 5 cases (3.5 %) and bleeding from the portal site in 3 cases (2.1%) in obese patients. Regarding to the pre and post operative complications there were no significant difference between the two groups with p value (p ≤ 0.05). Conclusion: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a safe and effective treatment for obese patients with cholecystitis. There is no difference in preoperative and postoperative technical procedures between obese and non-obese patients.