Analysis of Response to Ursodeoxycholic Acid for Gallstone Dissolution

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Abstract
Patients (20) with radiolucent gallbladder stones were reviewed after 6 mo. treatment with ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) at a dose of 500 or 1000 mg daily. Successful treatment could not be predicted from the patient''s characteristics, stone size or pretreatment biliary lipid analysis. During treatment the bile in patients who responded to UDCA differed from bile in those who did not: mean cholesterol content was lower in responders (4.1 .+-. 0.6 vs. 5.7 .+-. 0.5 mol%, P < 0.025) as was the lithogenic index (0.57 .+-. 0.06 vs. 0.81 .+-. 0.06, P < 0.005) and the mean UDCA-corrected lithogenic index (0.79 .+-. 0.10 vs. 1.04 .+-. 0.07, P < 0.05). The individual response could not be predicted from biliary lipid analysis during treatment.