Cholelithiasis in patients with chronic active liver disease: evaluation of risk factors

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the prevalence of gallstones in patients with chronic active liver disease in relation to age, sex, family history of gallstones, number of pregnancies, obesity, diabetes mellitus, aetiology of liver disease and presence or not of cirrhosis. We studied 508 patients (411 with liver cirrhosis and 97 with chronic active hepatitis) by ultrasonography. Overall prevalence of gallstones and previous cholecystectomy was 22.6% and 8.5%, respectively. A higher prevalence of gallstones was found in the subjects studied, matched for sex and age, than in the general Italian population. Univariate analysis of data showed that the prevalence of gallstones is higher in females and increases with age in both sexes and with the progression of liver disease to cirrhosis. No significant association was found between gallstones and lithogenic familiarity, obesity, diabetes mellitus, number of pregnancies and alcohol abuse. In multiple logistic regression analysis of data, female sex, increasing age and cirrhosis in the whole series, age in males and cirrhosis in females proved to be the only independent variables associated with gallstones.