Cholecystitis in neutropenic patients: retrospective study and systematic review

Abdominal infections are life-threatening complications in neutropenic patients. Among these, neutropenic cholecystitis is relatively rare. Nevertheless, its actual relevance is only investigated by anecdotal reports. We present a consecutive retrospective series of nine patients over a 12-year period. We calculated a frequency of 0.4% among all neutropenic episodes in patients with acute leukemia or aggressive lymphoma undergoing myelosuppressive chemotherapy. Only three of these patients had gallstones. Four patients died during the course of cholecystitis but in none of them cholecystitis was the primary cause of death. Systematic review of the literature revealed 45 patients with neutropenic cholecystitis of whom 26.7% died.