Enterolithotomy for Gallstone Ileus: An Uncommon Cause of Intestinal Obstruction

Author Info

Ajil Antony Yadukrishna S Ananth Vijay

Corresponding Author

Ajil Antony
Junior Resident, Department of General Surgery, Government Medical College, Kozhikode, Kerala, India

A B S T R A C T

Gallstone ileus is a rare complication of cholelithiasis which represent 1-3% of the causes of intestinal obstruction in the general population and is more commonly seen in females. Gallstone ileus does not present with unique symptoms, making the diagnosis difficult. Symptoms are often non-specific with intermittent intestinal obstruction. The management is surgical, but there is no consensus as to which of the different surgical techniques is the procedure of choice. We report an interesting case of a 78-year-old male brought to casualty with abdominal pain following a history of fall. Managed as a case of blunt trauma abdomen initially. Surprisingly investigations showed features of small bowel obstruction, a hyperdense structure in the distal jejunum with dilated proximal jejunal loops suggestive of gallstone ileus. The patient had undergone exploratory laparotomy with enterotomy and removal of gallstones without any postoperative complications. Intraoperatively cholecystoduodenal fistula was identified and the patient was electively planned for cholecystectomy and fistula repair.

Article Info

Article Type

Case Report

Publication history

Received: Sat 17, Jun 2023
Accepted: Mon 10, Jul 2023
Published: Sat 15, Jul 2023

Copyright

© 2023 Ajil Antony. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.JSCR.2023.03.02