Abstract

PURPOSE: To identify early sonographic features of gangrenous cholecystitis.MATERIALS AND METHODS: 101 patients with acute cholecystitis and a pre-operative sonogram were retrospectively reviewed by three radiologists in this IRB-approved and HIPAA-compliant study. Imaging data were correlated with histologic findings and compared using the Fisher's exact test or Student t test with p<0.05 to determine statistical significance.RESULTS: Forty-eight patients had gangrenous cholecystitis and 53 had non-gangrenous acute cholecystitis. Patients with gangrenous cholecystitis tended to be older (67±17 vs 48±18years; p=0.0001), male (ratio of male:female 2:1 vs 0.6:1; p=0.005), tachycardic (60% vs 28%; p=0.001), and diabetic (25% vs 8%; p=0.001). Median time between pre-operative sonogram and surgery was 1day. On imaging, patients with gangrenous cholecystitis were more likely to have echogenic pericholecystic fat (p=0.001), mucosal discontinuity (p=0.010), and frank perforation (p=0.004), while no statistically significant differences were seen in the presence of sloughed mucosa (p=0.104), pericholecystic fluid (p=0.523) or wall striations (p=0.839). In patients with gangrenous cholecystitis and echogenic pericholecystic fat, a smaller subset had concurrent mucosal discontinuity (57%), and a smaller subset of those had concurrent frank perforation (58%). The positive likelihood ratios for gangrenous cholecystitis with echogenic fat and mucosal discontinuity were 4.6 (95% confidence interval 1.9-11.3) and 14.4 (2.0-106), respectively.CONCLUSION: Echogenic pericholecystic fat and mucosal discontinuity are early sonographic findings that may help identify gangrenous cholecystitis prior to late findings of frank perforation.

View details for DOI 10.1007/s00261-021-03320-4

View details for PubMedID 34985635