Acute gallbladder disease; experience with 103 consecutive cases.

One hundred and three cases of acute cholecystitis in patients ranging in age from 19 to 88 years were reviewed. Operation was done in all cases. Seventy per cent of the patients were women. Primary cholecystectomy was done in 72.8 per cent of the series. Primary cholecystostomy was performed in the remainder, and one-fourth of these patients had a secondary cholecystectomy. No specific time, with relation to interval after onset of symptoms, was chosen for operation. Jaundice was present in 14.5 per cent of patients at the time of admittance to hospital. Serum amylase was above normal in five of 27 patients on whom this determination was carried out. All five were women. The gallbladder was perforated in 13 cases. Common duct exploration was done in 25 cases and in 12 of them stones were found. The morbidity rate for the series was 11.6 per cent; the mortality rate 9.7 per cent.