Factors encouraging laparotomy in acalculous cholecystitis

Because it is difficult to diagnose, acalculous cholecystitis in critically ill patients is treated frequently in an advanced stage. Three of 1600 cardiac surgery ICU admission cases and five of 500 general surgical ICU admission cases were analyzed retrospectively to determine which variables expedited diagnosis and might have encouraged earlier surgery. Vague right upper quadrant physical findings and nonspecific changes in liver function chemistries led frequently to radiologic evaluations. Noninvasive diagnostic procedures such as ultrasound and hepatobiliary scans were helpful but frequently inconclusive. Of the eight patients, the five survivors were diagnosed while still in the hyperdynamic hemodynamic state of early sepsis. Cholecystostomy performed early under local anesthesia was the safest procedure in this group of critically ill patients. After other sources of sepsis such as suppurative phlebitis, yeast septicemia, catheter sepsis, and other extra-abdominal sources such as soft-tissue, urinary, and pulmonary infections have been ruled out, hemodynamic data obtained from pulmonary artery catheters inserted during the early phase of sepsis increase diagnostic accuracy and should expedite surgical exploration.