Patients who undergo ileal pouch-anal anastomosis and are subsequently found to have Crohn's disease experience significant morbidity. Preoperative characteristics, including the presence of anal disease, were not predictive of subsequent pouch failure. We choose not to recommend the routine application of ileal pouch-anal anastomosis in any subset of patients with known Crohn's disease.

Acute cholecystitis in patients unfit for general anesthesia often initially requires cholecystectomy tube placement without cholecystectomy. The best way to definitively manage those patients with irreversible medical conditions, leaving them unable to undergo cholecystectomy, has yet to be defined. Laser lithotripsy is currently used in the management of stones of the genitourinary system. Extracorporeal shock wave cholelithotripsy has been extensively evaluated in Munich, Germany and since then, has been abandoned as an alternative treatment of cholelithiasis. This report discusses a novel approach using established cholecystocutaneous fistula tracts and laser lithotripsy to definitively treat this group of patients.

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