Clinical correlation of gallstone disease in a Chinese population in Taiwan: Experience at Cheng Hsin General Hospital

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONGallstone disease (GSD) is one of the most common diseases in developed countries. Recent studies indicate varying prevalence of GSD with several predisposing factors in different study populations [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] . From a medical economic perspective, the direct and indirect costs of treating GSD patients were estimated at $16 billion and account for more than 800 000 hospitalizations yearly in the United States [9,10] . In Taiwan, the prevalence of GSD in the general population was 4.3% in 1989 [8] while another voluntary screening revealed that the prevalence of GSD was 10.7% among healthy subjects in 1995 [2] . For this reason, due to westernization of the diet and the environment, GSD is not rare in the Chinese population and has become one of the major health problems in Taiwan [7] . Without an appropriate and effective screening program for symptomatic GSD, the medical treatment of GSD and related complications contributes substantially to health care costs.From the viewpoint of preventive medicine, it is RAPID COMMUNICATION RESULTS:The overall prevalence of GSD among this study-population was 5.3%, including 1.7% (n = 40) having a single stone, 2.3% (n = 55) having multiple stones, and 1.3% (n = 31) having cholecystectomy. The prevalence revealed a statistically significant increase with increasing age (P < 0.0001). Females exhibited a greater prevalence of multiple stones than did males (3.0% vs 1.7%, P = 0.04). Using multiple logistic regression analysis, the following appeared to be significantly related to the prevalence of GSD: older

Prevalence and Metabolic Factors of Hyperuricemia in an Elderly Agricultural and Fishing Population in Taiwan

“…11,27,28 Among patients with chronic hepatitis, fructose load may cause a substantial increase in serum uric acid levels. 5,7 Furthermore, serum uric acid levels are high in patients with chronic liver lesions. Our results regarding the significant association between high serum ALT level and hyperuricemia are similar to those reported in other studies.…”

Evidence-Based Medicine for Gallstone Disease Screening: An Experience at Cheng-Hsin General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

“…Women (3.0%) exhibited a significantly higher prevalence of multiple stones than did men (1.7%) (P = 0.04). Participants aged 50 years and older (96/918 = 10.5%) had a 5-fold risk for prevalent GSD compared with those aged 50 years and younger (30/1468 = 2.0%) [12].…”

Economic and medical benefits of ultrasound screenings for gallstone disease

“…A pilot study was performed using the data of 100 randomly selected healthy participants; none of our patients were included in this stage. The κ value of the interobserver reliability for the diagnosis of GSD among the medical specialists was 0.79 (95%CI: 0.610.95) [10] .…”

“…Gallbladder polyps were not included. The study cases were identified among all types of GSD patients [10] . To determine consistent criteria for the diagnosis of GSD, the κ statistic was further used to evaluate the interobserver reliability among various medical specialists.…”