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During the COVID-19 pandemic, elective surgeries suspension, led to delayed hospital visits for non-emergent diseases like acute cholecystitis. Although nonsurgical treatment was successful in numerous cases, there are some warnings about the progression of the disease to more advanced stages for laparoscopy. In this study, we aimed to find out if COVID-19 had adverse effects on the difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC).

In a retrospective cohort study at a referral center for minimally-invasive surgeries, medical records from February 2019 to February 2020 (before the pandemic) and from February 2020 until 2021 (during the outbreak) were reviewed and various data were extracted. Using two different preoperative scoring systems, we estimated the rate of difficulty of LCs, and the results compared to each other with appropriate statistical methods.

A total of 531 LCs were …