Day care surgery for gall bladder stones

It is not uncommon to see an abdominal ultrasonogram report suggesting stones in the gall bladder when you visit your doctor for pain in the upper abdomen or indigsetion or chronic gas. Stones in the gall bladder is a more serious condition than stones in the kidneys. The GB stones can cause infection in the gall bladder presenting with severe pain abdomen, can also cause jaundice by blocking the bile passage into the intestine and rarely a near fatal condition called acute pancreatitis by blocking the mouth of the pancreatic duct.

There is no medical treatment for gall bladder stones and these patients will require laparoscopic removal of the gall bladder along with the stones.

This surgery is performed as a day care procedure where in the patient checks into the hospital at 5.00am. Surgery is done at 6.00am and the patient is discharged at 2.00pm. Effectively the patient is in the hospital for about 6 hours. They walk back home and will take a normal dinner that night. Pain killer medications are given for relief of pain if any.. These patients start their routine normal activity the day following surgery. In the last 100 such operations we performed ,we had no problems with any patient and none of them have been re-admitted to the hopital. So I believe that laparoscopic gall bladder remoban can be safely operated on a day care basis and there is absolutely no need for the patient to saty in the hospital overnight