Evaluation of the incidence and risk factors of early symptomatic cholelithiasis following obesity surgery in Turkish patients

INTRODUCTION: Obesity is a serious public health issue. According to 2016 data from the Turkish Statistical Institute, 15.2% of males and 23.9% of females aged 15 years or older were detected to be obese in Türkiye. The reason obesity alone is a health problem is that it is accompanied by comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
METHODS: Data of 294 patients admitted to our hospital with a body mass index (BMI)>40 kg/m^2 who underwent laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy between January 2015 and December 2020 were retrospectively examined. Demographic data, chronic disease histories, biochemical work-up data, hospitalization period, post-operative complications, and histopathological examination results were recorded.
RESULTS: 235 (80%) of our patients were female and 59 (20%) were male. The mean pre-operative BMI value of the females was found to be 42.3±3.58 kg/m2 [41-56 kg/m2]. The mean pre-operative BMI value of the males was found to be 47.6±7.74 kg/m2 [41-62 kg/m2]. After bariatric surgery, within the first 6 post-operative months, cholelithiasis was accompanied in a total of 35 patients (11.9%). Following bariatric surgery, 19 patients were operated on for gallstones. Thirteen of these patients were asymptomatic.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: We detected that the incidence of post-bariatric surgery cholelithiasis is low. Factors such as sex, age, and comorbidities were not associated with cholelithiasis development in our patients. Therefore, we believe that prophylactic cholecystectomy should be avoided.