Type:
Educational Exhibit
Keywords:
Abdomen, Biliary Tract / Gallbladder, Emergency, Ultrasound, CT, Biopsy, Cholangiography, Cancer, Inflammation, Abscess, MR-Cholangiography
Authors:
F. X. Brunie1, M. Alonso Lacabe1, M. Fajardo1, M. Mendo1, M. Diez Blanco1, S. Rizzo2, C. Mostaza Sariñena1, M. Hernández3, A. Ginés Santiago1; 1Valladolid/ES, 247012/ES, 3Valladolid, VALLADOLID/ES
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2018/C-2576
Background
The pathology of the gallbladder is one of the clinical conditions that the radiologist must master due to its great frequency and impact on the population and health system.
The entities that affect it are very varied,
it includes congenital anomalies,
inflammatory or infectious affection and tumor diseases.
Ultrasound is the diagnostic tool of choice,
and may also be therapeutic in cases requiring percutaneous drainage of the gallbladder.
Other diagnostic methods (CT and MRI) may be useful in cases of suspected complications or to assess other associated pathologies.
Among the most frequent entities that we face are cholelithiasis,
acute cholecystitis and its complications,
benign proliferative entities and neoplasias.
Due to its frequency,
most of these entities do not generate great doubts for the radiologists,
however,
the diagnosis is not always so simple.
There are pathologies that may go unnoticed in an abdominal ultrasound such as emphysematous cholecystitis.
CT can be more sensitive to confirm the presence of gas in the wall.
There are other cases where it is difficult to differentiate a xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis from a gallbladder cancer.
In this review we want to show the different entities that affect the gallbladder from the simplest to diagnose those that can generate greater diagnostic doubts,
requiring to complete the study with other imaging techniques.