Symptoms and Treatment of Gallstones

Laparoscopic (keyhole) cholecystectomy (removal of the whole gallbladder) is the standard of care for patients with symptomatic gallstones.

20% of the population has gallstones. If gallstones are removed without taking out the gallbladder, it will recur. Complications from gallstones include cholecystitis (infection of the gallbladder), cholangitis (blockage of the liver resulting in pain, fever and jaundice) and pancreatitis.

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a surgery which removes your gallbladder and gallstone under general anaesthesia. Straight forward gallstone cases usually take less than an hour. Complicated cases including infected gallbladder or patients with complications of gallstones may take up to 2 to 3 hours.

Patients are admitted on the same day of the surgery. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy may be done as a day procedure, meaning patients can go home on the same day or patients may stay overnight and are discharged the next morning.

After the gallbladder / gallstone surgery, patients will be able to walk around, have something to eat and able to walk to the bathroom. The wounds are closed with sutures and covered with waterproof dressings by the surgeon. Patients are allowed to shower and pat dry the wounds. Soaking in a bath and swimming are not ideal for the first few weeks after the surgery. Any heaving lifting and physical exercise is also discouraged initially.

Standard gallbladder / gallstone laparoscopic surgery uses 4 small incisions for the surgeon to insert a camera and instruments for the surgery. 3 of these incisions are around 5mm in size. The largest incision is the one just below the umbilicus (belly button). This incision is used for inserting the camera and where the gallbladder is taken out from the abdomen. The gallbladder is then sent to histopathology department. The pathologist will look at the gallbladder under the microscope to ensure that there are no malignant changes.

Other minimally invasive techniques include robotic cholecystectomy and single incision laparoscopic surgery. All these techniques are variations of the standard gallbladder / gallstone treatment surgery in Singapore. Currently, robotic surgery is relatively costly as compared to the standard laparoscopic technique.