The history of open and laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Piotr Gembal; Krzysztof Milik; Janusz Ździebło; Jakub Kęsik; Tomasz Zubilewicz

Vol 9, No 2 (2007)

Published online: 2007-06-27

View PDF (Polish)

Download PDF file

Get Citation

The history of open and laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Piotr Gembal, Krzysztof Milik, Janusz Ździebło, Jakub Kęsik, Tomasz Zubilewicz

Chirurgia Polska 2007;9(2):97-103.

Vol 9, No 2 (2007)

Published online: 2007-06-27

Abstract

The year 2007 marks twenty years since the first performance of a laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Today, this procedure is one of the most common abdominal operations although surgery of the gall bladder has lasted for over three hundred years. The surgical technique has evolved from removal of only gall stones at first, then from cholecystostomy to open cholecystectomy and finally, to the achievement of the end of the 20^th century, laparoscopic cholecystectomy. With the development of the surgical technique the quality of the patient’s life has also improved, having first been treated only symptomatically and later also causatively. Nowadays, laparoscopy more and more often supplants open cholecystectomy which is reserved only for complicated cases. The aim of this article is to review the history of treating gall bladder stones and also to show the evaluation of surgical methods through the ages.