Acute Gangrenous Cholecystitis: Proposal of a Score and Comparison with Previous Published Scores

Gangrenous cholecystitis (GC) is a particularly severe form of acute cholecystitis (AC) and is associated with an increased risk of postoperative morbidity and mortality. Recent reports show that surgeons are remarkably unsuccessful in diagnosing GC.

We conducted a retrospective study involving 587 patients with AC. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify independent predictive factors of GC. We assigned points for the score according to the regression coefficient. The area under the curve (AUC) was determined using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The scoring system was then prospectively validated on a second population. We validated 2 previously published scoring models.

Six independent predictive factors of GC were identified: [3-]4 ASA score, temperature, duration of symptoms, WBC, male gender, and pericholecystic fluid. A predictive score of GC was established based on these independent predictive factors. Sensitivity was 81.4%; specificity was 70%. The AUC of this clinicoradiological score was 0.83. The AUC of our score was higher than that of the first published score (the AUC was 0.75 in the original report and 0.78 in the validation model using our dataset) and that of the second published score (the AUC was 0.77 in the original report and 0.72 in the validation model using our dataset).

The AUC of our score exceeded 0.80, indicating that this score can help in diagnosing patients with GC, and thus in prioritizing these patients for surgery or choosing the adapted technique of drainage in critically ill patients.