The harm of gallstones and the serious complications

The most common liver and gallbladder disease is gallstones. Many people have gallstones but do not need treatment if they do not have an attack. Once an attack occurs, it will cause vomiting, back pain, and stomach pain. Symptoms must be treated promptly, otherwise it will cause many complications, such as bile duct bleeding and pancreatitis.

1. Acute cholecystitis, liver abscess, biliary bleeding

The most serious complication of cholelithiasis is acute cholecystitis of varying degrees of severity, including gangrenous, emphysematous cholecystitis, pericholecystic abscess and perforation. Chronic calculous cholecystitis is also a common complication of gallstones. In addition, complications of gallstones include pancreatitis, liver abscess, cholangitis, ascending hepatitis, portal vein inflammation, Mirizzi syndrome and gallbladder cancer. Except for chronic cholecystitis (almost every patient with gallstones has chronic cholecystitis), about 20% of patients with gallstones will develop complications, and the incidence of complications increases significantly with age.

2. Mirizzi syndrome and confluent stones:

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3. Common complications of common bile duct stones are varying degrees of cholangitis and bacterial infection of the bile duct, followed by gallstone pancreatitis, liver abscess, sepsis, cholecystobiliary fistula and cholelithiasis ileus. It is rare for common bile duct stenosis to be caused by ulceration of the common bile duct mucosa due to compression by gallstones. In my country, ulceration, necrosis and bleeding of the bile duct mucosa due to compression by gallstones can be seen from time to time, while in Western countries, biliary bleeding is rare in patients with common bile duct stones. In addition, long-term recurrent cholangitis and jaundice caused by common bile duct stones may further develop into biliary cirrhosis.