2021 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 159-162
The patient was a 75-year-old woman who had undergone endoscopic choledocholithotomy followed by laparoscopic cholecystectomy for cholecystitis and choledocholithiasis. During the laparoscopic cholecystectomy, the gallbladder was perforated and gallstones spilled into the peritoneal cavity. The patient was discharged with a good postoperative prognosis, but was readmitted to the hospital about 2 months after the surgery with inflammatory symptoms such as high fever. Abdominal CT revealed hepatic abscesses, presumably caused by the spilled gallstones into the peritoneal cavity during the surgery. She was treated by percutaneous abscess drainage as well as intravenous and oral antibiotics. Over 2 years have passed since the treatment, and neither the hepatic nor the intraperitoneal abscesses have recurred. Unretrieved gallstones from the peritoneal cavity sometimes cause peritoneal abscesses, but hepatic abscesses are rarely reported. Herein, we report a rare case of hepatic abscesses caused by unretrieved gallstones with a review of similar cases reported in the literature.
