Seven misconceptions about the diagnosis and treatment of gallbladder stones

  Gallbladder stones are no stranger to people and are a common disease among the public, with an incidence of 7-10%. With the advancement of medical technology, gallbladder stones can now be diagnosed at all levels of medical institutions including community health centers, and different types of treatment options are available.  1. Gallbladder stones are misdiagnosed as gastric disease.  The gallbladder is closely adjacent to the stomach and duodenum, and the innervation and blood supply of the gallbladder are from the same trunk as the nerves and blood vessels of the stomach and duodenum. Therefore, the pain sensation caused by gallbladder lesion is transmitted to human brain via the same sensory nerve trunk of stomach and duodenum.  2, missed diagnosis of other serious diseases, gallbladder stones become the “scapegoat”.  The right upper abdominal pain symptom of gallbladder stone is very similar to the abdominal pain caused by liver cancer and colon and liver flexure cancer, so clinically many doctors ask simple medical history and are easily satisfied with the diagnosis of gallbladder stone, relying on ultrasound examination to find gallbladder stone and perform cholecystectomy, which is only found to be liver cancer or colon cancer during or after surgery, delaying early treatment. Therefore, the diagnosis of gallbladder stones should be carefully distinguished from the above two types of tumors to avoid gallbladder stones becoming a “scapegoat”. In addition, the acute pain of gallbladder stones should be differentiated from acute myocardial infarction and right-sided pleurisy.  3, static type” gallbladder stones “preventive” surgery.  Many people have one or more stones in the gallbladder found by ultrasound during physical examination, but in daily life there is no pain in the right upper abdomen or upper abdomen and no gastrointestinal symptoms, this kind of gallbladder stones is medically called “stationary” stones. The so-called “resting” gallbladder stones are harmless and do not need to be removed surgically, and there is no theoretical basis for the so-called prophylactic removal. Only when gallbladder stones are complicated by biliary colic, cholecystitis or jaundice caused by stones are they harmful to people, and only then do they need to be treated.  4, recurrent gallbladder stones refuse to be operated.  When gallbladder stones are complicated by cholecystitis, the gallbladder loses its normal physiological function of storing and concentrating bile due to inflammation and has an abnormal pathological effect.  First, repeated inflammation and recurrent symptoms of epigastric pain prevent people from working and living normally; second, once the gallbladder is inflamed medical treatment such as antibiotics alone can only relieve symptoms and temporarily reduce inflammation, but the changes in gallbladder tissue caused by inflammation make recurrent inflammation of the gallbladder almost inevitable. Therefore, we can always see many such patients in the clinic, that is, once the gallbladder inflammation is relieved by conservative medical treatment, frequent attacks, and the duration of the attack is getting longer and longer, the interval is getting shorter and shorter, and the symptoms are getting heavier.  Third, repeated inflammation of the gallbladder can cause gallbladder necrosis and gallbladder perforation in severe cases. Once necrosis or perforation occurs, it can cause the medical condition called “acute peritonitis”, which is much more harmful than simple cholecystitis.  Fourthly, when the gallbladder is inflamed, the violent contraction of the gallbladder will squeeze the stones into the bile ducts causing bile duct obstruction, i.e., obstruction of the bile discharge pathway. Therefore, as long as the gallbladder stones are complicated by acute cholecystitis, in principle, the most reasonable and thorough treatment is to remove the diseased gallbladder as soon as possible.  5, abuse of lithotripsy, lithotripsy drugs.  Lithotripsy has a long history, and the early application of goose deoxycholic acid lithotripsy in the 1970s was successful. But oral lithotripsy is not easy to reach the gallbladder to act on the stones, and direct injection of drugs into the gallbladder lithotripsy also has a certain degree of risk, and because of the long course, low cure rate, high recurrence rate, and many side effects, lithotripsy treatment has been abandoned by professional treatment of gallbladder stones at home and abroad. Because of the long and slender gallbladder duct and spiral flap, most of the patients cannot expel the gallbladder stones after taking oral lithotripsy drugs, which may even cause serious consequences such as stone impaction in the neck of gallbladder, biliary ductitis and pancreatitis. At present, many bile acid drugs and Chinese medicines are not lithotriptic, but they still claim to treat gallstones and are widely sold, mainly because they are “in the market”, i.e. patients are afraid of surgery.  6. Believe in the “new” procedure of gallstone extraction.  For the treatment of gallbladder stones, gallbladder lithotripsy is a procedure that has been eliminated and is not a radical surgery. The reason why stones grow in the gallbladder is that there are pathological factors in the gallbladder itself, even if the stones are ideally removed, the diseased gallbladder is not removed and the stones will continue to grow. Even if the stones are ideally removed, the diseased gallbladder is not removed and the stones will continue to grow. Clinically, cholecystostomy can be used as decompression and drainage for high-risk people who are not suitable for cholecystectomy for the time being, and then cholecystectomy is still advocated after the condition is stabilized.  7. Blind lithotripsy treatment.  Extracorporeal liquid wave lithotripsy may break the gallbladder stones, but because of the special structure of the gallbladder duct, it is difficult to completely discharge the broken stones from the gallbladder. This is different from the treatment of urinary stones by lithotripsy, because the urinary tract can secrete a large amount of urine, which can flush the crushed stones out of the body. Therefore, this treatment is now obsolete.