[Gallstone and Parkinson's disease--ultrasound echography study]

Gastrointestinal symptoms caused by autonomic nervous system dysfunction has been well known in Parkinson's disease. This time we had a chance to see a patient with Parkinson's disease associated with acute abdominal pain because of gallstones. This study extended to examine abdominal findings in 79 cases of Parkinson's disease using abdominal ultrasound echography and also studied relationships between echographic findings and age, Hoen-Yahr stage and duration of the illness. Results were as follows: Echographic abnormalities were found 53.2% of the cases. Among them, gallstone was the most frequent findings and the incidence was 29.1% which showed significantly higher than that of the gallstone holding ratio (16.6%) in a age matched Japanese autopsy study. Subsequent findings were renal cyst (16.5%), renal stone (8.9%), liver cyst, portal dilatation and so on. No remarkable relationship was found between Hoen-Yahr stage and gallstone, however good correlation was found between duration of the illness and gallstone. It was concluded that gallstone holding ratio in Parkinson's disease is considerably high compared to that of a age matched Japanese autopsy study, which might be of great use in our daily clinics.