Emergency Management of Gallbladder Disease: Are Acute Surgical Units the New Gold Standard?

Abstract

Introduction: Since 2011, all acute general surgical admissions have been managed by the consultant-led emergency general surgery service (EGS) at our institution. We aim to compare EGS management of acute biliary disease to its preceding model. Materials and methods: Retrospective review of prospectively collated databases was performed to capture consecutive emergency admissions with biliary disease from 1st February 2009 to 31st January 2013. Patient demographics, surgical intervention, use of diagnostic radiology, histological diagnosis, complications and hospital length of stay (LOS) were retrieved. Results: A total of 566 patients were included (pre-EGS 254 vs. EGS 312). In the EGS per..