Laparoscopic laser cholecystectomy.

The standard treatment of cholelithiasis in the United States is surgical removal of the gallbladder, but this treatment often has a major economic impact on the patient: major surgery, lengthy hospitalization, and several weeks' absence from work. Because of this economic factor, there has been a movement toward non-invasive methods, but they, too, have their drawbacks: long-term medical therapy; a high risk of stone recurrence because the diseased gallbladder is still in place. We therefore developed a means of performing a cholecystectomy through a laparoscope using laser technology, the results of which are compared here with the results in a series of “mini-lap” cholecystectomies that we also performed during the same time period.