Table 3.

Operative outcomes for surgical comparisons

Author, year	Wait time mean ± SD		Conversion rate N, (%)		Postoperative complications N, (%)
	Surgery	Observation	Surgery	Observation	Surgery	Observation
Vetrhus, 2002 [16], 2004 [15], and Schmidt, 2011 [19]a	5-year follow-up 3 [0–24] b months 14-year follow-up 3 [0–168] monthsd	5-year follow-up 27 [0–67] months 14-year follow-up 28 monthsb	0	4 (11%)	3 (5%)	5 (14%)
	Elective surgery	Urgent/early surgery	Elective surgery	Urgent/early surgery	Elective surgery	Urgent/early surgery
Salman, 2005 [17]	4.2 ± 1.4 months	14.2 ± 4.1 h	6 (17.2%)c	0	0e	0
Anwar, 2008 [18]f	114 days	3 days	0e	2 (2%)	7 (8%)e	0
	Surgeon discretion	Restrictive strategy	Surgeon discretion	Restrictive strategy	Surgeon discretion	Restrictive strategy
Van Dijk, 2019 [20]g	6 weeks [2, 10]c,h	6 weeks [3, 11]h	7 (2%)e	7 (2%)	88 (22%)e	74 (21%)

aStudies looked at same population, examined different outcomes at different timepoints

^bNo range reported

^cp < 0.05

^dMedian [range]

^eNot significantly different

^fAnwar, 2008 defined urgent cholecystectomy as early/same-day

^gSurgeon discretion defined as operation based on standard care left to the discretion of the surgeon; restrictive strategy used the fulfillment of five pre-specified criteria as indication for operation

^hMedian [IQR]