RISING FREQUENCY OF GALLBLADDER STONES IN MULTAN AND ADJOINING AREAS (PAKISTAN)

Objective: Research objective was the determination of the cholelithiasis surgical incidence in Multan and its adjacent areas. Design: The design of research was cross sectional. Settings: Research was conducted at various surgical units of Nishtar Hospital Multan, Fauji Foundation Hospital, Wapda Hospital, Railway Hospital Multan, Zubaida Fatima Memorial Hospital. Patients: Our research included a total of male and female respectively 483 & 1583 in the age limit of 10 – 80 years. These patients underwent gallstone surgery from 2015 to 2017. Measurements: Cholelithiasis surgical incidence in the time span of Jan, 2015 to Dec, 2017 was the focus of this research. We used questionnaire to study the said incidence and noticed the age, sex, dietary habits, gall stone presentation month in the patients. Results: Gall stone incidence was observed in males and females respectively 4.0% and 14.2%, the proportion of male to female was one to 3.3. Peak months were the months of May and November in which number of cases were observed with the gallstone presentation. Males were in the age group of 10 – 78 years; whereas, females were in the age group of 11 – 80 years. Male and female peak age for the incidence of gallstone was respectively 45 – 59 years and 30 – 44 years. More prone ages for gallstone were observed in female and males respectively as 30 years and 44 years in comparison to other age groups. Conclusions: An overall cholelithiasis surgical incidence was observed as 9.03% (95% Confidence interval, 8.6% - 9.4%), the incidence was more in females observed 3.3 times higher than the males in the incidence of gallstones development. Key Words: Cholelithiasis, surgical incidence and gallstones.