A Study on Gallstone Disease in Relation to Different Ages

Know gallstones and all else will come to you in biliary surgery. This old dictum has been proved today by scientific and clinical means to be largely true. Though the disease had been known from ancient time, the mechanism of formation of gallstones is not yet established and is still a matter of dispute. It is frequently encountered in a woman in her middle age though the incidence is increasing in male sex and in both extreme of age. The old concept that only 'fatty, fertile, flatulent female of forty or fifty' suffers from cholelithiasis, does not always hold true as gallstones can be seen in the extreme of ages in both sexes and thinly built persons as well as in non-fertile female too. Pain is the principal presenting symptom associated with or without flatulent dyspepsia, nausea and vomiting, fever and right upper quadrant tenderness. Radiation / referral of pain showed a peculiar finding that though commonly it refers to the right shoulder. The different ages of gallstone diseases are recorded and statistically analysed. The recorded data were then statistically analysed using Student's T-test. P value d" 0.05 is considered as statistically significant. The data obtained in this study will help surgeons for diagnosis of the disease clinically.