Abnormalities in gallbladder morphology and function in patients with cholelithiasis.

Thirty-seven symptomatic cholelithiasis patients who had cholecystectomy were studied to determine the relationships between clinical manifestations, histologic findings and gallbladder absorptive capability. A clinical score was calculated from clinical data which we thought might be predictive of abnormal gallbladder histology. Histologic parameters indicative of gallbladder disease were used to calculate a histologic score. Shortcircuit current measurements, which reflect gallbladder sodium absorption,were used to assess absorptive function. Patients with very high clinical scores, indicative of pronounced clinical score was not predictive of histologic findings or absorptive function of the gallbladder is directly related to the degree of histologic abnormality, and that absorptive capability is not an all-or-none phenomenon. The data also show that visualization on oral cholecystography is an unreliable measure of gallbladder absorptive capability.