Cholecystectomy is one of the most common operations in the world and diarrhoea developing after this is a well-known and documented clinical problem. However the aetiology of post cholecystectomy diarrhoea is not fully understood, and can often be the most distressing post-operative, non-painful, symptom. Determining the incidence of occurrence and the likely severity of post cholecystectomy diarrhoea could, therefore, identify whether cholecystectomy itself may be a cause for bile acid malabsorption induced diarrhoea after surgery (Farahmandfar et al 2012). There has been a recent revival...

Study cohort and exclusion criteria. The study group consisted of unselected consecutive patients who had undergone a SeHCAT scan between 30th Sept 2013 and 30th Sept 2015. A retrospective review was then undertaken of the patient records. Patients were rejected before this review if they had not yet completed the SeHCAT test. Four patients were also later rejected during the review as we were unable to acquire their patient files for review. The level of diarrhoea was determined from a review of patient files and...

This study comprised of 279 patients who were referred for and underwent a SeHCAT scan consecutively between 30th Sept 2013 and 30th Sept 2015. Of these patients 85 (30.5%) had post cholecystectomy diarrhoea and of these 40 (47%) patients had positive SeHCAT results (Table 3). From the NICE guidelines a positive SeHCAT result of 0-4.9 is severe, and 5-15 is mild/moderate, whereas 15+ is a normal result. Of the 279 patients who were part of this study 207 (74.2%) were female leaving 72 (25.8%) male....

Conclusion The results, in table 1 andfig 1, show that in patients who had undergone SeHCAT testing post-cholecystectomy, more patients had diarrhoea with a normal SeHCAT result, and therefore no BAM present after cholecystectomy, than patients that had diarrhoea with a positive SeHCAT result. This gives rise to the probability that there are additional unknown factors which may play a role in the prevalence of these patients diarrhoea. Our results have also shown that only 47% of patients who had post-cholecystectomy diarrhoea had a positive...

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