is it possible to remove only a portion of gall bladder if you have gallbladder stones?
Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at
4:52 am
My dad was diagnosed with stones in his gall bladder, is it possible to removed only the portion where the stones are located in the bladder?or he really need his whole gall bladder removed?
Filed under: Liver Cleanse
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No.
The gall bladder is a bag with one opening. The pain your dad is probably experiencing is caused when the gall bladder tries to squeeze its contents out and can’t because the stones block up the opening. In theory you could just cut open the gall bladder, remove the stones, and sew it back up (that’s really your question–does he need to have the gall bladder removed?), but that would not be advisable.
1) this turns a relatively simple operation into a much more difficult, complicated, and contaminated (prone to infection) operation.
2) your dad’s original problem was that he formed gall stones. There will be nothing stopping him from forming more gall stones in the future.
The standard of care is to remove the entire gall bladder. I have never heard of anyone considering trying to save it. I’m sure somebody in surgical history tried, but presumably they failed since no one does it now.
ERCP is useful if you have stones lodged in the common bile duct (outside the gall bladder), but not for stones inside the gall bladder.
sometimes they will perform an ERCP-(name for entire thing is really long) where they use a scope to extract the stones. as far as removing the gallbladder- its all or nothing. i’m sure the surgeon has to take into consideration where the stones are, how bad the gallbladder is and risks/benefits of the surgery vs. stone removal.
Don’t worry; people don’t experience any adverse effects from having their gallbladders taken out. (Mine was taken out due to gallstones over 10 years ago, and I can’t tell the difference.) It’s function is to store bile. When people have their gallbladders removed, part of the common bile duct expands to take over the original function of the gallbladder.