Gallstones in spinal cord injury (SCI): a late medical complication?<||||>Prospective controlled study. To assess the prevalence of cholelithiasis among chronic spinal spinal cord injured (SCI) male patients of the ACHS (Asociación Chilena de Seguridad). To evaluate statistically the prevalence of cholelithiasis among SCI patients compared to a control group and to the general male Chilean population. To assess the correlation between cholelithiasis in chronic SCI patients and usual risk factors such as age, obesity and diabetes mellitus. To assess the association of cholelithiasis in chronic SCI patients and the duration of the spinal cord injury. Rehabilitation Service at the Hospital del Trabajador, in Santiago, Chile. One hundred SCI patients followed up at the Hospital del Trabajador on a regular basis were included in the study; one group consisted of 76 subjects rated ASIA A or B and the other group consisted of 24 subjects rated ASIA C and D. They were all male, older than 20 years old (average age: 41,9 and 42,6 respectively), and suffered from a spinal cord injury greater than one year of evolution. The control group (CG) consisted of 100 male volunteers, without both SCI and history of biliary disease, aged 40.3 years old in average. All three groups underwent ultrasonographic imaging evaluation of the gallbladder and the biliary tract between 1998 and 2000. The prevalence of cholelithiasis among the groups was the following: 25% in the SCI patients ASIA A and B (19/76), 25% in the SCI patients ASIA C and D (6/24) and 9% (1/100) in the CG. The statistical analysis showed a value of P=0.0037, thus establishing a significant association between cholelithiasis and SCI, both complete and incomplete. The difference was not statistically significant when correlating the presence of cholelithiasis with the neurological level of the injury--above and below T10 (24,1 and 25%, respectively)--with the duration of the SCI, with age, obesity and diabetes mellitus.
SCI represents a major risk factor for the development of cholelithiasis, and it should be considered a late, secondary complication of a spinal cord injury.