Gallbladder dysfunction and gallstone prevalence in patients with chronic kidney disease. Is there a difference between predialysis and hemodialysis patients? A multi-center Study.

Background: Gallbladder stone formation is undoubtedly multifactorial, and many related factors had been thoroughly investigated. We evaluated gallbladder function and gallstone prevalence in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients and compared them among predialysis (PreD) and hemodialysis (HD) patients. Methods: A Cross-sectional controlled study was carried out in three big tertiary hospitals. Three groups of subjects were enrolled in the study; 100 control subjects, 120 PreD patients, who had CKD stage 4 and 5, and 135 CKD patients on regular HD. Routine biochemical parameters were assessed in all subjects. Ultrasonography was done for all groups to evaluate gallbladder volumes, and ejection fraction (EF) was calculated. Results: Gallbladder fasting volume (FV) was significantly different among study groups. There were statistically significant differences between CKD patients and controls, regarding both gallbladder residual volume (RV) and EF (P=0.008 and P<0.001, respectively). However, no statistically significant differences were found between PreD and HD patients, regarding both gallbladder RV and EF. Regarding, the frequency of gallbladder stones, there was a statistically significant difference between CKD patients and controls (P<0.004). Conclusion: CKD is associated with significant gallbladder dysfunction and high gallstone prevalence, however, these changes did not differ significantly between PreD and HD patients.