Long-term outcomes of endoscopic gallbladder stenting in high-risk surgical patients with calculous cholecystitis (with videos)

Background and Aims Recently, endoscopic gallbladder stenting (EGBS) has been performed to prevent recurrences in high-risk surgical patients with cholecystitis. However, evidence regarding the long-term outcomes of EGBS is sparse. We investigated the cholecystitis recurrence rate in high-risk surgical patients with acute calculous cholecystitis and compared the cholecystitis recurrence rates in patients in whom EGBS was performed with those in patients who were observed after percutaneous drainage. Methods We studied 64 consecutive high-risk surgical patients with acute calculous cholecystitis who required gallbladder decompression between 2007 and 2014. We divided the patient cohort into patients who underwent observation after percutaneous drainage between 2007 and 2011 (OAPD group) and those who underwent EGBS between 2012 and 2014 (EGBS group), and we compared the groups. Results The technical success rate of EGBS was 82.9% based on the intention-to-treat analysis. The cholecystitis recurrence rates were 17.2% in the OAPD group and 0% in the EGBS group, a difference that was significant ( P  = .043). There was also a significant difference between the groups with respect to the time to recurrent cholecystitis, which was determined by using Kaplan-Meier analysis ( P  = .015). The overall biliary event rates were 24.1% in the OAPD group and 9.1% in the EGBS group, and no significant difference was noted ( P  = .207). Conclusion EGBS reduced the recurrence of cholecystitis in high-risk surgical patients with calculous cholecystitis. However, stent-related adverse events may occur, and modifications are necessary to reduce these.