[Computerized tomography analysis of gallstones: soon an essential diagnosis before nonsurgical gallstone therapy?]

Successful application of non operative procedures for gallstone therapy are limited on cholesterol stones. Therefore reliable therapeutic analysis of stone components is mandatory for planning of an adequate therapy. Computed tomographic gallstone analysis is considered to improve selection of patients significantly. However, standardized conditions for investigation of patients are not yet established. It is suggested that computerized tomography should be performed using 4 mm slides, standardized position of patients and a phantom, which allows calibration of different CT-machines.