ETIOLOGY OF GALLSTONES

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The problem of cholesterol gallstone formation is essentially that of precipitation of cholesterol in the bile, because with remarkably few exceptions human gallstones are composed for the major part of cholesterol. This cholesterol may be of almost pure crystalline form or may be mixed with varying amounts of bile pigments or calcium, but the cholesterol-containing stones make up an enormous majority of all human gallstones, and according to Peel1 the cholesterol content of mixed concrements averages at least 80 per cent. The only exceptions are the pigment stones or calcium carbonate stones. Such stones are quite rare in human beings, although they are common in animals. The entirely different composition of the two classes of stones, together with the fact that cholesterol stones are never found in animals, suggests the probability that they have an entirely different pathogenesis. There are two problems to solve in the formation of cholesterolcontaining

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: