Purpose: We assessed our experience with urological complications of laparoscopic surgery in regard to incidence, etiology, treatment and possible prevention.
Materials and methods: A total of 350 laparoscopic procedures were performed at our institution between June 1993 and December 1999 in 206 men and 139 women. These procedures included pelvic lymph node dissection in 102, bladder neck suspension in 99, adrenalectomy in 54, varicocelectomy in 23, pyeloplasty in 22, nephrectomy in 20, treatment of benign renal pathologies, including cyst, diverticula and calculi, in 13, genitourinary prolapse repair in 11 and miscellaneous procedures in 6 patients. Complications were evaluated according to the procedure attempted and were listed by incidence and etiology.
Results: A total of 19 (5.4%) complications occurred in our series. The associated mortality rate was 0.3% and conversion rate was 1.1%. Most intraoperative complications (2.6%) were vascular (4) and visceral injuries (5), while postoperative complications (2.8%) were predominantly thromboembolism (3) and wound infection (2) at trocar sites. The complication rate decreased from 9% for the first 100 to 4% for the subsequent 250 procedures.
Conclusions: Critical documentation of complications of laparoscopic surgery is important for further development of the technique and information for urologists in training. Most of our serious complications should be preventable with better mastery of the different procedural steps. However, laparoscopy must be regarded as major surgery with a significant learning curve.