[Specific features of cholelithiasis in patients with chronic opisthorchosis]

The study involved 105 patients with grades II-III cholelithiasis (CL) including 53 ones having concomitant chronic opisthorchosis. Clinical, laboratory, and instrumental analyses were made to obtain parameters of hepatopancreatobiliary and gastrointestinal dysfunction. The clinical course of CL was characterized by statistically significant predominance of clinically apparent, as opposed to latent, forms of CL with concomitant opisthorchosis as early as the initial stages of cholecystolithiasis accompanied by a high frequency of biliary-type pain and biliary dyspepsia at a relatively low rate of intestinal dyspepsia and pancreatogenic pain. The significantly lower occurrence of trigger diseases in patients with opisthorchosis revealed in this study accounts for the importance of this chronic disease as a self-consistent factor promoting the development and progress of cholecystolithiasis due to marked inflammatory, cholestatic, and structural changes in the biliary duct system. High frequency of inflammatory and cholestatic manifestations at the onset of CL and early stages of episthorchosis suggests the possibility to improve clinico-laboratory characteristics of CL by managing the concomitant pathology.