Typical symptoms of gallstones are pain in the right upper abdomen which radiates to back and may be associated with vomiting. The pain is typically aggravated by the fatty food intake. A minority of the patients present with symptoms of hyperacidity. Sometimes if the stone slips into the bile duct patient may have jaundice or acute pancreatitis.
Gallbladder polyps are to be operated if symptomatic, single polyp > 1cm size or increasing size on repeated ultrasounds. Follow up ultrasounds are to be done at 6 monthly intervals.
Approximately 60-70% of the people with gallstone will never develop any symptom for gallstones, hence surgery is not recommended for gallstone without symptoms. But do not delay surgery is symptoms develop (as mentioned above).
Hyperacidity can be the symptom of gallstones. Its difficult be sure of that the symptom is due to gallstone or simple acidity. You should get surgery done while keeping in mind that there is a small chance of acidity not getting relieved. In such a case antacids will take care of the symptoms nicely.
There is no direct evidence linking gallstones with gallbladder cancer. ~97% of the gallbladder cancers have stones in it but on long term follow up <3% of gallstone patients will develop cancer. Single large stone > 3cm size is considered to be a risk but no concrete evidence.
In simple term it can be defined as inflammation or infection of the gallbladder. Usually associated with gallstones but sometimes can occur without it (acalculuscholecystitis: such patients are usually sick).
If it is uncomplicated cholecystitis and your surgeon is experienced enough, it can be operated within 2-3 days of attack of acute cholecystitis. But if the duration is longer from the day of attack of pain, it is preferable to wait for 4-6 weeks and then get operated (called as interval cholecystectomy).
Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is the procedure of choice for gallbladder removal, open surgery is reserved for cases in which either laparoscopy is not possible or there is suspicion of cancer.
Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a very safe procedure. The complications are very few. You will be able tolerate a normal diet after the procedure. Few patients may have increased frequency of stools initially which improves in the subsequent days. Surgical complications are rare most important being bile duct injury which occurs in <0.75% of total surgeries.
When there is uncontrolled growth of cells in your stomach it is known as stomach cancer.
There are certain risk factors which can make one person prone to stomach cancers. But that does not mean that any person having risk factors will develop stomach cancer, similarly also a person without any risk factors can develop cancer.
With any of the above symptoms you should visit your gastroenterologist of Gastrosurgeon/Oncologist. They will order certain tests to diagnose the problem.
a. UGI Endoscopy: This involves placing a camera through your mouth into the stomach to look for any abnormal growth and taking the biopsy.
Once the diagnosis is confirmed on biopsy, your surgeon will be ordering one CT scan of the abdomen.
b. CT Scan: This will tell about the extent of the disease and help your surgeon in deciding the Surgery
Surgery remains the mainstay and involves removal of a part or total stomach depending upon the location of the tumor with subsequent reconstruction.
Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are usually given after the surgery but sometimes if the initial disease is bigger and not appropriate for surgery you might be asked to take chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy prior to surgery to make the disease operable.
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