Re:What lab report can reveal - by trying to think

It's surprizing what a chemical analysis of Gallstones can reveal. I found some research that was understandable to me.

You can find the following two studies on the internet if you want to read more detail. The first one is short in comparison with the longer second one.

The first is a case report of a child taken to the emergency section of a hospital in India who had Gallstones removed. Amazingly, the doctors or surgeons at the hospital decided to use a CHEMICAL ANALYSIS of the Gallstones they had removed to determine their composition. The results of the chemical analysis showed the stone to be a pure cholesterol stone. This was done in 1983 and published in the Journal of Postgraduate Medicine 1987. (They didn't appear to think microscopy was necessary to check on the composition of the stones--unlike other doctors.)

To Cite: Ahmed MN, Ram TT, Ali MM, Dar MA, Bhat DN, Rashid PA. Gallstones in a child (a case report). J Postgrad Med 1987;33:84-6


In another case where it was decided to use chemical analysis, two universities cooperated in the study. One was a univesity in Africa, and the other a university in Texas. Over the course of a year from January 1989 to December 1989 stones were collected from patients and sent to a Texas laboratory for chemical analysis.

I posted an interesting part of the abstract below. In the third paragraph of the abstract below (posted beneath dotted line...), it says that MOST of their gallbladder patients' GALLSTONES DID NOT CONTAIN CHOLESTEROL (..so ethnic group is important in deciding what results to expect..). In other words if I picked a gallbladder patient at random and analyzed his gallstones, only 25% of the matter analyzed would show it contained cholesterol. The other 75% of his stones contained other stuff as proven by chemical analysis. The split of 25% of cholesterol and 75% of other things was true for 65% of the gallbladder patients they analyzed that year. This would indicate that the other 35% of gallbladder patients had a different balance of the chemicals in their gallstones. Each patient in this group had a greater amount of cholesterol stones--in other words more than 25% of the stones tested positive for cholesterol.

The two universities in the study were Dept. of Urology at Baylor University in Houston, Texas and the other, where the surgeries were performed, was Dept. of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Science at the University of Yaounde I, Cameroon. They wanted to test the theory (hypothesis) that gallstones could be dissolved with a certain type salt. They found the gallstones could not be dissolved with the salt. This was published in the World Journal Of Gastroenterology. It seems to me that microscopy was available at this time, 1989, yet they decided a chemical analysis would be sufficient to tell them what the composition was. Are these people, surgeons, and patients also an example of those-who-do-not-want-to-see-the-truth-even-though-it's-in-their-face type of people as those using alternative medicine are accused of being? Why aren't there people writing articles trying to imply there is a demonstration of a low level of scientific literacy in these two cases I posted here?

If analysis by microscopy is the only thing that matters when someone does a liver flush, otherwise the analysis is no good, why was it used to analyze the gallstones of millions of people in the 70's, 60's, 50's, 40's, 30's and so on, after surgery?
Before microscopy? Doctors and patients accepted the results then. Why can't they accept the lab results now? What is different? Does anyone know under what specific conditions the microscopy analysis is more significant than the chemical analysis of stones? (Other than wanting to buy new medical equipment.)

When someone tests the results of a Liver Flush with a chemical analysis done by a lab--then the chemical test suddenly can't test for cholesterol or anything anymore. It's not any good. But if you tell someone this same lab report from the results of a Liver Flush WAS ACUTALLY THE RESULTS OF A TEST DONE ON STONES REMOVED FROM THE GALLBLADDER DURING SURGERY THEN THE CHEMICAL TEST IS VALID AGAIN. Then it's good and the chemical composition of the stones or non-stones is accepted. Who is going to believe interpreting a test result that way by any person is a scientific approach? Not me. The same chemical test done on stones after a Liver Flush or surgery is equally valid.

In the past before microscopy analysis was available, were surgeons kidding when they told a patient he had cholesterol stones? Did they just take out a gallbladder and not say anything about what was inside because they didn't believe in the chemical test results?

After half a million gallbladder surgeries a year, how many of those are really actualy sent to a lab for any testing of their compostion by doctors or surgeons? (Not many is my guess.)

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...........................PART OF ABSTRACT......................................

AIM: Gallstone disease is increasing in sub-saharan Africa (SSA). In the west, the majority of stones can be dissolved with bile salts, since the major component is cholesterol. This medical therapy is expensive and not readily accessible to poor populations of SSA. It was therefore necessary to analyze the chemical composition of biliary stones in a group of patients, so as to make the case for introducing bile salt therapy in SSA.

METHODS: All patients with symptomatic gallstones were recruited in the study. All stones removed during cholecystectomy were sent to Houston for x-ray diffraction analysis. Data on age, sex, serum cholesterol, and the percentage by weight of cholesterol, calcium carbonate, and amorphous material in each stone was entered into a pre-established proforma. Frequencies of the major components of the stones were determined.

RESULTS: Sixteen women and ten men aged between 27 and 73 (mean 44.9) years provided stones for the study. The majority of patients (65.38%) had stones with less than 25% of cholesterol. Amorphous material made up more than 50% and 100% of stones from 16 (61.53%) and 9 (34.61%) patients respectively.

CONCLUSION: Cholesterol is present in small amounts in a minority of gallstones in Yaounde. Dissolution of gallstones with bile salts is unlikely to be successful.

Angwafo III FF, Takongmo S, Griffith D. Determination of chemical composition of gall bladder stones: Basis for treatment strategies in patients from Yaounde, Cameroon. World J Gastroenterol 2004; 10(2): 303-305
http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/10/303.asp


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