Giant Gall Bladder Stone:
A Case Report and Review of Literature
Keywords:
gallbladder stone, laparoscopic cholecystectomy, Calot, fundus firstAbstract
Gallbladder stones usually exhibit significant variation in size but rarely up to 5cm. Giant gallbladder stones, defined as stones greater than 5cm in diameter or more than 70 grams in weight, are a rare phenomenon and pose a management challenge. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy while being the gold standard of surgically removing gallbladders has a high rate of conversion to open even in expert hands due to the challenges of handling the giant gallstones. These challenges include difficulty grasping the gallbladder with the laparoscopic instruments, difficulty in exposing the anatomy of Calot’s triangle due to the size of the stone and extrinsic compression on the Calot’s triangle and difficulty in retrieving the specimen. We present the management of our first case of cholecystectomy for a giant gallbladder stone and discuss the choice of surgery.
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