Safety and effectiveness of day-surgery laparoscopic cholecystectomy is still uncertain: meta-analysis of eight randomized controlled trials based on GRADE approach.

BACKGROUND

Currently, there is no consensus on whether laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) performed as day-surgery is safe and effective and can be considered as the standard for the management of symptomatic gallbladder disease. We conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of this intervention based on the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach.

METHODS

We conducted a systematic search of several databases from their inception to November 10, 2016 for entries on the mortality, morbidity after discharge, readmission, postoperative morbidity, and patient satisfaction at 1 week of day-surgery LC. Pooled risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) was calculated using the fixed-effects model. Rare outcomes were presented as the Peto odds ratio (Peto OR). Meta-analysis was performed by using the RevMan 5.1 software, and the level of evidence was assessed by using the GRADE guideline and GRADEpro GDT software.

RESULTS

Eight RCTs totaling 624 participants were included. The result showed no intergroup difference in short-term mortality. Compared to overnight-stay surgery, day-surgery did not show any clear evidence of reduced morbidity after discharge (Peto OR 0.89; 95% CI 0.39-2.02), lower readmission rate (Peto OR 0.68; 95% CI 0.23-2.05), or higher postoperative morbidity rates (RR 1.28; 95% CI 0.81-2.02). However, the results suggested that day-surgery may improve patient satisfaction at 1 week (RR 1.17; 95% CI 1.03-1.33). Evaluation by the GRADE approach revealed that the quality of evidence for each outcome was of low to very low quality due to the risk of bias, imprecision, and inconsistency.

CONCLUSION

Our meta-analysis shows that the safety and effectiveness of day-surgery LC is still uncertain. Additional well-designed and adequately powered RCTs are required before the procedure can be recommended as the standard for clinical practice.