Readmissions and complications following cholecystectomy are common and associated with patient and disease characteristics.

Emergency cholecystectomy is less costly and more effective than delayed cholecystectomy. This approach is likely to be beneficial to patients in terms of improved health outcomes and to the healthcare provider owing to the reduced costs.

Patients with similar characteristics presenting to different hospitals with acute gallbladder pathology do not receive comparable care.

These results support the importance of duration of ruptured membranes as a risk factor for vertical transmission of HIV and suggest that a diagnosis of AIDS in the mother at the time of delivery may potentiate the effect of duration of ruptured membranes.

No abstract