Increased Risk of Gallstones following Curative Gastrectomy for Cancer

Abstract

The incidence of gallstones in patients who had undergone radical gastrectomy for cure of gastric cancer was 4–8 times higher than in the general population. At least two factors seem to be involved in this high incidence: one is complete vagotomy which is inevitable in gastrectomy with lymph node dissection, and the other perioperative hepatic dysfunction. One fourth of these patients with gallstones required cholecystectomy with or without T-tube drainage. The high incidence of gallstones and a rather difficult cholecystectomy we experienced forced us to perform prophylactic cholecystectomy in these gastric cancer patients diagnosed with: cirrhosis or hepatitis; hemophilia or other hematologic disorders, and the cancer lesion involving the aborad part of the stomach.