Exploration for Hemorrhage Following Laparoscopic Renal Surgery: Intraoperative Findings

Purpose: Bleeding after surgery is a rare but potentially life threatening complication. We reviewed operative and postoperative clinical features in patients who required surgical exploration secondary to hemorrhage following laparoscopic renal procedures. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of patients undergoing laparoscopic renal surgery between January 1996 and September 2004. Nine of 1,123 patients (0.8%) underwent early exploration for bleeding within 5 days of surgery. Results: Two groups were identified. Group 1 consisted of 4 patients who underwent early exploration at less than 10 hours after surgery and had arterial bleeding. Group 2 consisted of 5 patients who underwent exploration a mean 38 hours after surgery and in whom no bleeding source was identified. Group 1 patients had pronounced hypotension with systolic blood pressure 70 to 79 mm Hg and hematocrit decreases (mean 10.5%) in a short time course before repeat exploration (mean 4.5 hours). Arterial bleeding was identified in the hilum and adrenal bed. Group 2 patients demonstrated a decrease in hematocrit from an initial mean of 28.3% to 22.5% with tachycardia and mild hypotension (systolic blood pressure 90 to 99 mm Hg). On exploration group 2 patients had diffuse oozing. Mean hospital stay in group 1 was 8 days (range 4 to 9) vs 12 (range 6 to 24) in group 2. Conclusions: Early hemodynamic instability after laparoscopic renal surgery is likely to indicate a discrete arterial bleeding source from the hilum or adrenal bed, requiring surgical control. In patients who underwent exploration after a delayed bleeding presentation no discrete source was found intraoperatively. Therefore, it is unclear whether these patients benefited from surgical exploration.