[Acute acalculous cholecystitis. A stress-induced complication]

Abstract

The acute acalculous cholecystitis is a stress induced complication following surgery and trauma. A totally different disease is a large atonic gallbladder during parenteral nutrition. The symptoms of the acalculous cholecystitis are similar to acute cholecystitis in patients with cholelithiasis. The diagnosis can be very difficult, because in the postoperative period patients are usually very sick, treated with analgetic and antibiotic drugs and therefore the symptoms are mostly lacking or equivocal. Typical signs are fever and leucocytosis. An ultrasound scan should be performed at the intensive care unit. Although the disease is rare according to the literature, in future it may be diagnosed more frequently because of extended surgical intensive care, higher age of patients, modern methods of surgery and early ultrasound scans in equivocal cases. Having the possibility of postoperative and posttraumatic acute acalculous cholecystitis in mind, surgeons may be able to make the right diagnosis earlier than the pathologist.