Abstract
Approximately 10-15% of the adult population in Saudi Arabia complains of symptomatic gallbladder stones. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is the gold standard to treat people who present with acute cholecystitis. However, there is evidence suggesting that the conservative management can be effective and safe in treating asymptomatic patients. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that affect decision-making to treat patients with either the conservative or the operative approach. Those factors include different size of stones, number of stones, and symptomatic stones. The study was conducted at the Department of General Surgery at King Fahad University Hospital-IAU in al-Khobar city, Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from hospital archives using medical records with a biased sampling technique. Data from 113 patients who had gallstones disease for a period of one year were collected. 89.4% of patients who had gallstones were treated with laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC), while 10.6% received a conservative therapy. Most of patients with a mean age between 20-49 years had surgery and most of them were females. Management type was not significantly associated with different sizes of stones, number, or presence of obstruction. Symptomatology and severity of symptoms were significantly associated with the LC group where severe symptomatic patients were treated surgically, while mild symptoms received conservative therapy. Complete recovery from symptoms was approximately the same in both groups.