Acalculous gall-bladder disease

Abstract

Abstract A prospective study of 130 consecutive unselected patients submitted to cholecystectomy for biliary disease has been made. Nineteen patients (14.6 per cent) were found to have acalculous gall-bladder disease. The clinical history of these patients did not differ significantly from those with calculous disease, whilst the radiological and histopathological findings in this group were variable. Eleven of these 19 patients were completely relieved of their symptoms by surgery and it appeared that cholecystectomy was most successful in the patients with a history of either severe pain or previous acute cholecystitis. It is concluded that chronic gall-bladder disease may be acalculous and that, despite the lack of a homogeneous pathological background, surgery is of considerable value in a high proportion of such cases.