Abstract
Stone recurrence is one of the major drawbacks of any non-surgical treatment of gall bladder stones. Ablation of the gall bladder would alleviate this risk. In the present research we evaluated different chemical agents in respect to their ability to destroy completely the gall bladder mucosa of the rabbit with subsequent obliteration of its lumen. We found that absolute alcohol caused total necrosis of the mucosa after continuous contact for 10 minutes in all animals studied. This was followed by growth of granulation tissue from the wall into the gall bladder lumen. The lumen was totally obliterated in 50% of the animals studied after 8 weeks. Methyl-tertiary-butyl ether is less potent in causing mucosal destruction; 50% dextrose does not cause permanent damage to the mucosa.