Institutional experience in the histopathological characteristics and frequency of gallbladder lesions

Purpose: Our aim in this study is to retrospectively examine cases in which cholecystectomy was performed and to determine incidental cancer cases. Materials and methods: We retrospectively examined the pathology reports of 1841 patients who underwent surgeries in the general surgery clinic for the treatment of gallbladder diseases between March 2006 and May 2015 and whose gallbladder materials were examined after surgery. Age, gender, pathological diagnosis and presence of gallbladder stones were recorded. Results: The average age of the 1841 patients (male/female: 585/1256) evaluated in this study was 50.37 ± 18.81 years (range: 2-97 years). Surgery for gallbladder disease was most commonly performed in the age range of 50-60 years. Chronic cholecystitis was the most common histopathological diagnosis (92.0%), followed by acute cholecystitis (5.1%), non-neoplastic lesions (1.74%), preneoplastic lesions (0.76%), carcinomas (0.33%) and lymphomas (0.1%). One or more gallbladder stones were detected in 955 patients. Of these, 93.4% and 4.1% patients were diagnosed with chronic cholecystitis and acute cholecystitis, respectively. Conclusion: Histopathological examination of gallbladder materials is important for identifying incidental benign and malignant tumours.