by Robert Preidt
Health reporter
Diet After Gallbladder Removal - Patients Have Many Options When Faced With Gallbladder Disease
Thursday, (Health News) - It's just a tiny bile producer bag folded behind the liver, but if the gallbladder is wrong, it can mean great health problems.
In fact, more than 725,000 Americans undergo surgery to treat gallbladder disease each year, let's say a team of experts reporting 23 July in the new England Journal of Medicine.
So what to do when the problem of gallbladder - or an inflamed gallbladder or biliars - strikes? In a new review, specialists led by Dr. Todd Baron, professor of gastroenterology at the University of North Carolina Medicine School, compared the pros and cons of various surgical methods to the problem.
Surgeries to remove problems of problems are called colecistectomies, and the most common procedure is the least invasive laparascopic. According to the experts, this technique, introduced in 1985, leaves little or no visible healing, but can be difficult to realize in patients with severe gallbladder inflammation or those who had previous abdominal surgery.
A newer technique is called natural transluminal endoscopic surgery. This method does not require incision, but it depends on special equipment and is technically difficult, which means that it is only available in some medical centers. The gallbladder is achieved using an endoscope that is inserted into the body through a natural opening, such as the mouth, vagina or anus.
Another option - for patients who do not qualify for the laparoscopic approach - is called percutaneous cholecystomy. In this procedure, a catheter is placed through the abdominal wall directly to the gallbladder, to help surgeons drain bile through the tube and then out of the body.
Baron and his colleagues say that this approach is effective in 90% of patients with a serious inflammation of the gallbladder, but the external drain tubes can be uncomfortable.
Finally, the most recent approach involves draining bile directly in the patient's gastrointestinal tract, where it can also help in digestion. Bile can be directed in this way through endoscopic procedures that use one of the two routes, experts said.
The prime function of the vesicle vesicle is the bile secretion, which helps the digestive system breaking fats, according to data from the University of Maryland Medical Center.
The stones can form the organ, however, and Bile Ducts block, causing pain. A chronic blockage may be threatening to life and requires surgical removal of the gallbladder.
