User:Drus1a/sandbox

Potential sources
Tokyo Guidelines 2007

Laparoscopic surgery has fewer complications, requires a shorter recovery period, and allows patients to return to their normal activities sooner than compared to open cholecystectomy. Outcomes are as good or better than open procedures as long as the surgeon is well-trained in laparoscopic methods.

Current Diagnosis and Treatment: Surgery, chapter on Biliary Disease

Gallstones are incredibly common in the United States: over 20 million people have them, but only about 30% of these people will require surgery, since most gallstones do not cause symptoms. Gallstones become more common with age, with 1 out of 5 US women and 1 out of 20 US men having them in the age range 50-65y. About 300,000 operations are preformed each year because of gallstones.

Biliary colic, or recurrent episodes of pain from gallstones blocking the cystic duct, is a common reason for people to have their gallbladder removed. The operation relieves symptoms in 95% of cases.

The operative death rate in cholecyst. is about 0.1% in patients under age 50 and about 0.5% in patients over age 50.

Schwartz's Principles of Surgery, chapter on Gallbladder and the Extrahepatic Biliary System

Cholecystectomy: Surgical Removal of the Gallbladder, created by the American College of Surgeons

Surgical and Nonsurgical Management of Gallstones, by American Assoication of Family Physicians (2104)

Cochrane review of laparoscopic cholecystectomy vs. open cholecystectomy : Laparoscopic versus open cholecystectomy for patients with symptomatic cholecystolithiasis.

Common indications:
 * Biliary colic
 * Acute cholecystitis
 * Carcinoma of the gallbladder

Alternatives to surgery
 * Watchful waiting
 * Stone retrieval by endoscopy (ERCP) >> Understanding ERCP, published by the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
 * Cholecystostomy >> 2013 Cochrane review: Percutaneous cholecystostomy for high-risk surgical patients with acute calculous cholecystitis.