Acute cholecystitis guidelines need work

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. – In patients with right upper quadrant pain, the Tokyo Guidelines (TG13) failed to detect acute cholecystitis with adequate sensitivity, according to a single institution retrospective review.

Researchers at the University of Arizona, Tucson, also found that the Tokyo Guidelines’ advice to manage grade II and grade III cholecystitis patients conservatively may be unwarranted, because there were no differences in safety outcomes between grade I and grade II patients who underwent early cholecystectomy.

“[Early surgery] is a decision that has to be made between the patient and the surgeon. The disease severity is one component, but it’s not the whole picture. If the patient is willing to undergo surgery, cholecystectomy has consistently been shown to have benefits both in terms of outcome as well as hospital costs and utilization of health care. I think that should be the way to go forward if conditions allow,” senior author Taylor S. Riall, MD, PhD, FACS, acting chair of the department of surgery at the University of Arizona, said in an interview.

The Tokyo Guidelines were based on expert opinion rather than evidence, and may be limited by differences in practices in Japan and other countries. “There was no formal evaluation of the sensitivity and specificity in any other country,” Faisal Jehan, MD, a research fellow at the University of Arizona, said in an interview. Dr. Jehan presented the study at the annual meeting of the Western Surgical Association.

The study suggests there is additional work to be done before the guidelines are more generally applicable. They are being updated and the new version is slated to appear in 2018.

Cholecystectomy is one of the most common procedures in the United States, and hence represents a major source of health care expenditure. Useful guidelines will therefore be welcome to help standardize treatment, according to Dr. Riall. “I think while we’ve moved as a population toward earlier cholecystectomy, it isn’t uniformly practiced in the United States. So I think there is value in having guidelines that are relevant to our population and relevant to our practice,” she said.

But compared with the pathology report, the TG13 guidelines fared poorly in prediction of acute cholecystitis, with a sensitivity of just 53% (definitive 27%, suspected 26%, undiagnosed 53%). The underperformance of the guidelines may be due in part to recent changes in health-seeking behavior, as patients are likely to get to the hospital more quickly than in the past, and thus exhibit fewer clinical signs when first examined. “That could be decreasing the sensitivity,” said Dr. Jehan.

Suspicious that the guidelines were inadequate, the researchers analyzed their institution’s Emergency General Surgery registry, examining records from 952 patients who presented with right upper quadrant pain between 2013 and 2015. They compared diagnoses and severity assessed using the TG13 guidelines to the ensuing pathology reports, which were obtained from patient charts.

A total of 857 patients of the 952 had biliary disease. Of these, 779 patients went on to cholecystectomy, 15 had cholecystostomy-tube placement, and 63 were managed conservatively with no surgery. Among patients with biliary disease, the frequency of fever at presentation was just 4%, while 51.8% had leukocytosis. Right upper quadrant tenderness was the most sensitive predictor of acute cholecystitis (92%). Murphy’s sign occurred in 28.8% of patients and had a 72% sensitivity.

Following the TG13 guidelines resulted in classification of 414 patients as grade I, 400 as grade II, and 43 as grade III. A total of 92.5% of grade I patients underwent early cholecystectomy, as the TG-13 guidelines suggest. Nearly as many (89.3%) grade II patients also underwent early surgery, as did 50% of grade III patients. The complication rate was similar between grade I and grade II patients who underwent surgery (3.7% vs. 4.7%; P = .81). The rate of return to the operating room was also similar (0.6% vs. 0.7%; P = .95), as was mortality (0.3% vs. 0%; P = .96).

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. – In patients with right upper quadrant pain, the Tokyo Guidelines (TG13) failed to detect acute cholecystitis with adequate sensitivity, according to a single institution retrospective review.

Researchers at the University of Arizona, Tucson, also found that the Tokyo Guidelines’ advice to manage grade II and grade III cholecystitis patients conservatively may be unwarranted, because there were no differences in safety outcomes between grade I and grade II patients who underwent early cholecystectomy.

“[Early surgery] is a decision that has to be made between the patient and the surgeon. The disease severity is one component, but it’s not the whole picture. If the patient is willing to undergo surgery, cholecystectomy has consistently been shown to have benefits both in terms of outcome as well as hospital costs and utilization of health care. I think that should be the way to go forward if conditions allow,” senior author Taylor S. Riall, MD, PhD, FACS, acting chair of the department of surgery at the University of Arizona, said in an interview.

The Tokyo Guidelines were based on expert opinion rather than evidence, and may be limited by differences in practices in Japan and other countries. “There was no formal evaluation of the sensitivity and specificity in any other country,” Faisal Jehan, MD, a research fellow at the University of Arizona, said in an interview. Dr. Jehan presented the study at the annual meeting of the Western Surgical Association.

The study suggests there is additional work to be done before the guidelines are more generally applicable. They are being updated and the new version is slated to appear in 2018.

Cholecystectomy is one of the most common procedures in the United States, and hence represents a major source of health care expenditure. Useful guidelines will therefore be welcome to help standardize treatment, according to Dr. Riall. “I think while we’ve moved as a population toward earlier cholecystectomy, it isn’t uniformly practiced in the United States. So I think there is value in having guidelines that are relevant to our population and relevant to our practice,” she said.

But compared with the pathology report, the TG13 guidelines fared poorly in prediction of acute cholecystitis, with a sensitivity of just 53% (definitive 27%, suspected 26%, undiagnosed 53%). The underperformance of the guidelines may be due in part to recent changes in health-seeking behavior, as patients are likely to get to the hospital more quickly than in the past, and thus exhibit fewer clinical signs when first examined. “That could be decreasing the sensitivity,” said Dr. Jehan.

Suspicious that the guidelines were inadequate, the researchers analyzed their institution’s Emergency General Surgery registry, examining records from 952 patients who presented with right upper quadrant pain between 2013 and 2015. They compared diagnoses and severity assessed using the TG13 guidelines to the ensuing pathology reports, which were obtained from patient charts.

A total of 857 patients of the 952 had biliary disease. Of these, 779 patients went on to cholecystectomy, 15 had cholecystostomy-tube placement, and 63 were managed conservatively with no surgery. Among patients with biliary disease, the frequency of fever at presentation was just 4%, while 51.8% had leukocytosis. Right upper quadrant tenderness was the most sensitive predictor of acute cholecystitis (92%). Murphy’s sign occurred in 28.8% of patients and had a 72% sensitivity.

Following the TG13 guidelines resulted in classification of 414 patients as grade I, 400 as grade II, and 43 as grade III. A total of 92.5% of grade I patients underwent early cholecystectomy, as the TG-13 guidelines suggest. Nearly as many (89.3%) grade II patients also underwent early surgery, as did 50% of grade III patients. The complication rate was similar between grade I and grade II patients who underwent surgery (3.7% vs. 4.7%; P = .81). The rate of return to the operating room was also similar (0.6% vs. 0.7%; P = .95), as was mortality (0.3% vs. 0%; P = .96).

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. – In patients with right upper quadrant pain, the Tokyo Guidelines (TG13) failed to detect acute cholecystitis with adequate sensitivity, according to a single institution retrospective review.

Researchers at the University of Arizona, Tucson, also found that the Tokyo Guidelines’ advice to manage grade II and grade III cholecystitis patients conservatively may be unwarranted, because there were no differences in safety outcomes between grade I and grade II patients who underwent early cholecystectomy.

“[Early surgery] is a decision that has to be made between the patient and the surgeon. The disease severity is one component, but it’s not the whole picture. If the patient is willing to undergo surgery, cholecystectomy has consistently been shown to have benefits both in terms of outcome as well as hospital costs and utilization of health care. I think that should be the way to go forward if conditions allow,” senior author Taylor S. Riall, MD, PhD, FACS, acting chair of the department of surgery at the University of Arizona, said in an interview.

The Tokyo Guidelines were based on expert opinion rather than evidence, and may be limited by differences in practices in Japan and other countries. “There was no formal evaluation of the sensitivity and specificity in any other country,” Faisal Jehan, MD, a research fellow at the University of Arizona, said in an interview. Dr. Jehan presented the study at the annual meeting of the Western Surgical Association.

The study suggests there is additional work to be done before the guidelines are more generally applicable. They are being updated and the new version is slated to appear in 2018.

Cholecystectomy is one of the most common procedures in the United States, and hence represents a major source of health care expenditure. Useful guidelines will therefore be welcome to help standardize treatment, according to Dr. Riall. “I think while we’ve moved as a population toward earlier cholecystectomy, it isn’t uniformly practiced in the United States. So I think there is value in having guidelines that are relevant to our population and relevant to our practice,” she said.

But compared with the pathology report, the TG13 guidelines fared poorly in prediction of acute cholecystitis, with a sensitivity of just 53% (definitive 27%, suspected 26%, undiagnosed 53%). The underperformance of the guidelines may be due in part to recent changes in health-seeking behavior, as patients are likely to get to the hospital more quickly than in the past, and thus exhibit fewer clinical signs when first examined. “That could be decreasing the sensitivity,” said Dr. Jehan.

Suspicious that the guidelines were inadequate, the researchers analyzed their institution’s Emergency General Surgery registry, examining records from 952 patients who presented with right upper quadrant pain between 2013 and 2015. They compared diagnoses and severity assessed using the TG13 guidelines to the ensuing pathology reports, which were obtained from patient charts.

A total of 857 patients of the 952 had biliary disease. Of these, 779 patients went on to cholecystectomy, 15 had cholecystostomy-tube placement, and 63 were managed conservatively with no surgery. Among patients with biliary disease, the frequency of fever at presentation was just 4%, while 51.8% had leukocytosis. Right upper quadrant tenderness was the most sensitive predictor of acute cholecystitis (92%). Murphy’s sign occurred in 28.8% of patients and had a 72% sensitivity.

Following the TG13 guidelines resulted in classification of 414 patients as grade I, 400 as grade II, and 43 as grade III. A total of 92.5% of grade I patients underwent early cholecystectomy, as the TG-13 guidelines suggest. Nearly as many (89.3%) grade II patients also underwent early surgery, as did 50% of grade III patients. The complication rate was similar between grade I and grade II patients who underwent surgery (3.7% vs. 4.7%; P = .81). The rate of return to the operating room was also similar (0.6% vs. 0.7%; P = .95), as was mortality (0.3% vs. 0%; P = .96).