[Acute post-traumatic cholecystitis. Caused by or following polytrauma?]

Traumatic acute cholecystitis is of secondary importance beside many other complications in the polytraumatised patient, since it is rarely diagnosed--possibly too rarely. Difficulties often arise because of a multitude of injuries, which are often life-threatening and which must be given top priority (3). Men are chiefly involved (4). In most cases, the condition is preceded by shock, but not necessarily by gallstones (10, 11). First pointers in literature were given by Mennenga (8). As early as 1939 he pointed out that blunt abdominal trauma may produce tears in the gallbladder and bile duct regions. Marre (7) described acute signs in the upper abdomen due to rupture of the bile duct. Genesis of post-traumatic acute cholecystitis is still unclarified. Apart from rupture or perforation of the gallbladder or bile ducts, it is mainly shock (4, 9, 12) which is considered to be an important causative factor.