9-year-old child has gallstones, the doctor unmasked the cause of the disease causing parents to freeze

9-year-old girl with gallstones, have been treated for 4 years

Viet Duc Hospital is currently treating a 13-year-old patient who has suffered from gallstones for 4 years and 8 years (since he was 9 years old). Her mother said she still took medication regularly and monitored periodically. Doctors said that if the stones get bigger, they will have to cut the gallbladder.

Gallstones form a complex mechanism, mainly involved in metabolism. 90% of internal and extrahepatic biliary tract pathologies are associated with pancreatic and hepatic pathologies. Many cases come to the hospital at a later stage, making treatment difficult and time consuming.

Gallstones and gallstones are common, but not all cases indicate surgery. If there are stones in the gallbladder but the patient is not painless, no fever, just follow up, check periodically 1-2 times / year. The doctor appoints surgery for cases of pain, inflammation, atrophy of the gallbladder or thickened bile wall, without bile fluid .

The doctor disclosed the cause of the child having gallstones

Dr. Do Tuan Anh, Head of the Department of Liver and Biliary Surgery, Viet Duc Hospital, said that stones are common in middle age, but they tend to meet in young people recently.

Dr. Do Tuan Anh said that the cause of children suffering from gallstones is mainly related to metabolic disorders due to unbalanced eating, eating too much fat and protein.

Common high cholesterol foods are fats, animal fats, viscera, animal brains, egg yolks and other shellfish and seafood. 100 grams of pork leg contains 190mg of cholesterol, in 100g eggshell can have up to 2000mg of cholesterol. Children who regularly eat too much of this high cholesterol food will cause their bile cholesterol to exceed the standard, thus forming cholesterol stones.

Another reason that children in rural areas have gallstones is due to unsatisfactory hygiene, so worm infection on the bile ducts causes infection, forming stones in bile, especially roundworm. When the worms crawl into the bile ducts, they leave debris of the worms or worm eggs, which cause the pigment pigment and calcium to cling to form gallstones.

Manifestations of gallstones in young children

In children, gallstones have 3 typical symptoms:

- Severe abdominal pain, sudden onset of pain, severe pain in the lower right flank, sometimes on the shoulder blades or back, sometimes in the epigastric region. The pain can last for hours and usually comes after a high-fat meal.

- High fever or moderate fever, mild fever due to the body's reaction to biliary tract infections.

- Cholestatic jaundice, fecal stool, dark urine.

The expression in each child is different. Some children only have pain and fever, no jaundice. Parents, if they see their child showing these symptoms, they should immediately take them to the hospital. The doctor will examine and decide if the baby needs surgery to remove the gallbladder or remove gallstones. Gallstones are detected very simply by ultrasound and some laboratory tests.

If subjective, not regular examination of stones, there are many dangerous complications such as gallbladder necrosis or gallstones falling into the bile ducts causing complications of acute pancreatitis, acute biliary obstruction .