Surgery

An study on 92 patients who had undergone gallbladder removal and had Gallstones symptoms were monitored for about 31 months. Abdominal pain continued to be present (or arose later) in 30 percent of patients. A pain-free outcome was mostly associated with a preoperative diagnosis of biliary colic, fatty food intolerance, and a thick-walled gallbladder on ultrasound.

Another study of 2481 patients who had undergone gallbladder removal showed that 27% of patients who had identified a symptom that was most bothersome before surgery, still had that symptom six months after surgery.