Medium urgency
Very common-
Inflammation of the gallbladder, where bile is stored.
The most common cause is a stone which obstructs the way out, increasing pressure inside, irritating the walls and facilitating bacterial infection.
It manifests with intense and continuous pain in the upper right part of the abdomen or in the pit of the stomach. It is accompanied by fever, nausea and vomiting, clay-colored stools, yellow skin and general malaise.
Diagnosis is clinical and analytical by an abdominal ultrasound which shows the existence of stones and irritation of the gallbladder wall.
It is treated with support measures and surgery. Draining the bile through a puncture can improve surgical conditions or substitute surgery is there is a high surgical risk.
- de Mestral C, Rotstein OD, Laupacis A, et al. A population-based analysis of the clinical course of 10,304 patients with acute cholecystitis, discharged without cholecystectomy. J Trauma Acute Care Surg 2013; 74:26.
- Strasberg SM. Clinical practice. Acute calculous cholecystitis. N Engl J Med 2008; 358:2804.
- Solomkin JS, Mazuski JE, Bradley JS, et al. Diagnosis and management of complicated intra-abdominal infection in adults and children: guidelines by the Surgical Infection Society and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Clin Infect Dis 2010; 50:133.
- Norton J. Greenberger, Gustav Paumgartner. Enfermedades de la vesícula biliar y de las vías biliares. Colecistitis aguda y crónica. Harrison. Principios de Medicina Interna. Volumen 2. 19ª Edición. 2080:2083.
- E. Ros. Enfermedades de las vías biliares. Colecistitis aguda. Farreras Rozman. Medicina Interna. Volumen I. Duodécima edición. 359:360.
Dr. Oscar Garcia-Esquirol
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