Gallbladder disease in children and adolescents.

Seventy-nine patients, twenty years old or younger, with cholecystitis underwent cholecystectomy during a five year period at Santa Rosa Medical Center. There was a considerable delay in diagnosis in many cases. Etiologic factors differed with race and age; however, the disease appears to be quite similar in adolescents and adults. Hemolytic disease was present in all five blacks but in none of the remaining seventy-four patients. Patients younger than ten years of age are more likely to have congenital anomalies or infectious etiologies for the gallbladder disease. Cholecystectomy was associated with minimal morbidity and no mortality in this series. Cholecystitis should be considered early in the child or adolescent with unexplained abdominal pain, and oral cholecystograms proved to be a safe and reliable method of diagnosis.