A Study on the Incidence of Gallstones in Patients with Spinal Cord Injury

Park, Tae Hyun; Byun, Jong Hoon; Suh, Jung Hwan; Jin, Won Jong; Choi, Young Chan; Ha, Sang Chul; Doo, Chang Joon; Kim, Mi Young

Abstract

Background/Airns: Approximately 30% of all patients who have spinal cord injuries have gastrointestinal symptoms. Gallstone disease is one of the causes. We performed the following study in order to determine the prevalence of gallstone disease among patients with spinal cord injury.
METHODS
We evaluated male patients who have spinal cord injuries. Abdominal ultrasonography, a detailed history and laboratory data were reviewed. In the study we excluded the patients with a history of obesity, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, gastric surgery, vagotomy, family history, liver cirrhosis, total parental nutrition, or of female sex. We evaluated 80 patients with spinal cord injuries and 82 controls. '.
RESULTS
Gallstone disease was significantly more prevalent in patients with spinal cord injury (18 of 80, 22.5%) compared to the control group (6 of 82, 7.3%). In the patients with spinal cord injury, the prevalence of gallstone disease was related with increasing age, but not the duration of injury, level of injured spinal cord and serum cholesterol.
CONCLUSIONS
Spinal cord injury appears to be a risk factor for gallstone disease. But additional prospective studies are needed to confirm this association.