Critical Care Aspects of Gallstone Disease

Piero Portincasa¹, Emilio Molina-Molina¹, Gabriella Garruti², David Q.-H. Wang³

1 Clinica Medica “A. Murri”, Department of Biomedical Sciences & Human Oncology, University of Bari Medical School, Bari, Italy
2 Section of Endocrinology, Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantations, University of Bari “Aldo Moro” Medical School, Piazza G. Cesare 11, 70124 Bari, Italy
3 Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Marion Bessin Liver Research Center, “Albert Einstein” College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461, USA

DOI: 10.2478/jccm-2019-0003

Approximately twenty percent of adults have gallstones making it one of the most prevalent gastrointestinal diseases in Western countries. About twenty percent of gallstone patients requires medical, endoscopic, or surgical therapies such as cholecystectomy due to the onset of gallstone-related symptoms or gallstone-related complications. Thus, patients with symptomatic, uncomplicated or complicated gallstones, regardless of the type of stones, represent one of the largest patient categories admitted to European hospitals.
This review deals with the important critical care aspects associated with a gallstone-related disease.