Biliary Lithiasis: An Epidemiological, Clinical and Therapeutic Retrospective Study

Abstract

Background: Biliary lithiasis can be defined as the presence of concrements in the gallbladder, the biliary ducts, or both. Patients are mostly asymptomatic in over 80% of cases and are discovered by chance during a rouine ultrasound scan. When symptomatic, it can manifest as hepatic colicky pain or as serious life-threatening complications requiring surgery as the only method of treatment. Methods: In this work we report a study of a series of 316 biliary lithiasis cases reported in the Department of Surgery for a period of one year i.e. from 2018 to 2019. Results: Female predominance was 78% while males represented only 22% of the total cases; with 24.68% in patients over 40 years of age. It can manifest itself as simple vesicular lithiasis (93.35%) or complications (6.64%) including cholecystitis (23.8%; n=21), lithiasis of the main biliary tract or angiocholitis (76.19%; n=21). The treatment is mainly surgical, either by laparoscopy (93%) or by laparotomy (7%). Post-operative complications were noted in 12 patients (3.8%). Conclusion: As it is common in clinical practice, biliary lithiasis should be approached in a multidisciplinary fashion, employing the most convenient diagnostic procedure relevant to the clinical condition of the patient.