Laparoscopic cholecystectomy: intraoperative ultrasound of the extrahepatic biliary tree and the natural history of postoperative transabdominal ultrasound findings.

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) has been rapidly embraced as an alternative to conventional open cholecystectomy (OC). While LC is less invasive than OC, it is still a surgical procedure with potential complications such as retained bile duct stones, iatrogenic injury to the bile duct with or without bile leak, hemorrhage, intestinal injury, and abscess formation. This article discusses the feasibility of intraoperative transmural ultrasound of the extrahepatic biliary tree with a 6.2 French catheter-based ultrasound probe and reviews the natural history of postoperative changes in the liver and gallbladder bed with conventional transabdominal ultrasound.