Guidelines for the Management of Acute Cholecystitis

Despite being a common disease, there are significant controversies regarding the diagnosis and management of acute calculous cholecystitis (ACC). The 2007 and 2013 Tokyo Guidelines (TG) attempted to establish objective parameters for the diagnosis of ACC. While this improved the understanding of ACC, some criticisms followed. For this reason, the World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES) decided to convene two consensus conferences to investigate the limitations of the TG. These conferences led to the creation of the 2016 WSES guidelines on ACC and the 2017 WSES/SICG guidelines on ACC in the elderly population. The aim of this chapter is to combine and briefly summarize the WSES guidelines on ACC and to provide a quick and easy-to-use tool for physicians treating this challenging disease.