Abstract Worldwide, increasingly complex surgery is being performed laparoscopically; thus, laparoscopic complication ratesmay be increasing. Reported risks fromall complications of laparoscopic surgery are between 1 and 12.5/1000 cases and serious complications in 1/1000 cases. Accurate compli-cation rates of surgery are difficult to obtain as most data arefrom retrospective studies and may be incomplete. This paper
is a 10-year retrospective review of gynaecological laparo-scopic complications from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2012. Data sources are SEMAHELIX Hospital Database,
Gynaecology Complications Register, Clinical Governanc Records, Complaints and Legal Cases. Recorded complica-tions were classified as diagnostic, sterilisations and therapeu-tic laparoscopies. Further classifications are as follows: major complications and type of injury (bowel, urological, vascular, other), minor complications and failed sterilisations. Twenty-nine complications were identified from 5128 laparoscopies;
total complication rate is 5.7/1000 procedures. Major compli-cation rates are as follows: diagnostic, 2.2/1000; sterilisations, 3.3/1000; and therapeutic, 3.1/1000, subcategorised into bow-el 1.4/1000, urological 0.2/1000 and vascular 1.2/1000. Our
total complication rate lies within published national rates.Compared to published standards of major complications, di-agnostic laparoscopy and laparoscopic sterilisation rates were comparable. Conversely, our therapeutic laparoscopy compli-cation rate was much lower. The highest complication rate was in the failed sterilisation group; however, this rate is within published sterilisation failure rates. Bowel and vascular
complications were comparable; minor complication rates were low in all groups.