Background. The abdominal drainage with a prophylactic purpose was used by surgeons for decades because of the possibility to detect early signs of postoperative complications. However, the real value of routine drainage after abdominal surgery is still debated. There are discrepancies between studies supporting the drain placement only in patients with intraoperative complications and works showing a beneficial effect of prophylactic abdominal drainage on postoperative pain, nausea, and vomiting. However, there is still a lack of evidence on the use of routine abdominal drainage following laparoscopic cholecystectomy and its clinical value. Current guidelines do not mention the role of drainage after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Objective: to evaluate whether conventional postoperative drainage is more effective than no drainage in patients with non-complicated benign gallbladder disease after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Materials and methods. A search in the electronic databases MEDLINE, Scopus, Cochrane Library was conducted for randomized controlled trials reporting outcomes of laparoscopic cholecystectomy with and without an abdominal drainage until January 2024. The systematic review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines and meta-analysis — using fixed and random effects models. Odds ratio (OR) with confidence interval (CI) for qualitative variables and mean difference (MD) with CI for continuous variables were calculated using IBM SPSS Statistics 29.0.2.0. Results. Forty-four randomized controlled trials involving 5,185 patients (2,592 with drains vs 2,593 without them) were included in the meta-analysis. There were no statistically significant differences in the incidence of intra-abdominal fluid accumulation (OR = 0.87; 95% CI: 0.64–1.19; p = 0.39) between two groups. Abdominal drains did not reduce the overall incidence of nausea and vomiting (OR = 1.51; 95% CI: 0.85–2.70; p = 0 .16) or shoulder pain (OR = 0.90; 95% CI: 0.58–1.41; p = 0.65). The abdominal drain group reported significantly higher pain scores (MD = 0.67; 95% CI: 0.37–0.98; p < 0.001) than patients without drains. Abdominal drainage increased operative time (MD = 3.82; 95% CI: 1.93–5.70; p < 0.001) but not the length of hospital stay after surgery (MD = 0.42; 95% CI: –0.02–0.85; p = 0.06). Wound infection (OR = 3.26; 95% CI: 2.35–4.51; p < 0.001), fever (OR = 4.40; 95% CI: 2.57–7.8554; p < 0.001) and pneumonia (OR = 4.74; 95% CI: 2.25–9.97; p < 0.001) were found to be associated with the use of abdominal drains. Conclusions. Currently, there is no evidence to support the use of routine drainage after laparoscopic cholecystectomy in non-complicated benign gallbladder disease. No drainage after laparoscopic cholecystectomy is safe and associated with fewer complications. Postoperative recovery is improved if drain is not used. Further well-designed randomized clinical trials are required to confirm this finding.
