Prevalence of gallstone disease in patients with end-stage renal disease treated with hemodialysis in Korea.
OBJECTIVE
Gallstone disease is one of the major causes of morbidity in adults. Hemodialysis has been found to increase the risk of gallstone formation secondary to increased biliary cholesterol and biliary saturation index. However, there is very little data on the prevalence of gallstones in hemodialysis patients.


METHODS
We compared the prevalence of gallstone disease in patients with end-stage renal disease treated with hemodialysis with that of 208 age- and sex-matched controls (non-uremic group). Patients who had chronic liver disease, renal disease, and diabetes were excluded from the control group.


RESULTS
In our study, we found a prevalence for gallstone of 18.2% in patients with end-stage renal disease treated with hemodialysis, which was significantly higher than 5.3% in the non-uremic control. Most of our hemodialysis patients had asymptomatic cholecystolithiasis. Hemodialysis patients with cholecystolithiasis were significantly older than patients without gallstones. We did not find a difference in sex and duration of hemodialysis treatment between patients with and without gallstones.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that the prevalence of gallstone disease is higher in patients with end-stage renal disease treated with hemodialysis than in the non-uremic population in Korea.
Hahm
Joon Soo
JS
Institute of Digestive Disease, Hanyang University College of Medicine, 17 Haengdang-dong, Sungdong-ku, Seoul 133-791, Korea. hamjs@hanyang.ac.kr
Lee
Hang Lak
HL
Park
Joon Yong
JY
Eun
Chang Soo
CS
Han
Dong Soo
DS
Choi
Ho Soon
HS
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015897:Comorbidity; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D042882:Gallstones / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D007676:Kidney Failure, Chronic / Q000453:epidemiology*; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D006435:Renal Dialysis / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012307:Risk Factors