Gallbladder Cancer
Gallbladder cancer is a rare, but very aggressive type of cancer that forms in the small pear-shaped organ attached to the liver. The gallbladder acts as a storage pouch for the digestive bile created by the liver. Many patients worry that having gallstones makes them high risk for gallbladder cancer. There has been no definitive relationships seen between the two, though there may be a very slight increase in the risk of gallbladder cancer in those who have extremely large gallstones. With that being said, when the gallbladder is removed - usually because of symptomatic gallstones, it is almost always sent to pathology, where it is checked for signs of malignancy.
Gallstones are extremely common with upwards of 10-15% of all adults having them. Of those individuals with gallstones, somewhere between 10 to 20% become symptomatic. The symptoms of gallstones can vary between people. Most patients experience pain in the upper right quadrant of the abdomen, especially after eating, when the gallbladder squeezes bile out into the digestive system. More severe attacks may be debilitating and patients will feel nauseous and even vomit, along with feeling a general sense of malaise.
The only definitive treatment for symptomatic gallstones is the removal of the gallbladder, known as a cholecystectomy. This is one of the most straightforward and safest of the general surgery procedures we offer. Unfortunately, other interventions such as dietary gallbladder flush is, chemical dissolution of gallstones and more typically do not work and some may even be problematic.
Learn more about gallbladder removal: https://www.vipsurg.com/gallbl....adder/gallbladder-su
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