5 patients report Gallbladder Gangrene post Covid recovery

Five patients developed gallbladder gangrene after recovering from Covid-19, according to doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. The hospital’s medical specialists claim this is the first instance of such cases in India.

Between June and August, the five patients — four men and one woman ranging in age from 37 to 75 – were successfully treated at the hospital. They reported having a fever, discomfort in the right upper quadrant of their belly, and vomiting. Two of them had diabetes, and one had heart problems. Steroids were given to three individuals to treat Covid-19 symptoms.

Dr Anil Arora, Chairman of the Institute of Liver, Gastroenterology and Pancreaticobiliary Sciences at the hospital, said, “We recently successfully treated five patients for gallbladder gangrene between June to August 2021, who had recovered from Covid-19 infection and presented with severe inflammation of gallbladder without gallstones (acalculous cholecystitis) resulting in gangrene of gallbladder requiring urgent surgery. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a series of five cases from India in which gallbladder gangrene had occurred in patients after recovery from Covid-19 infection.”

As per the PTI news agency, gall bladder stone disease is a common problem in North India. The disease is responsible for 90% of cases of acute inflammation called cholecystitis. Only 10% of the patients have “acalculous cholecystitis” which is inflammation of the gallbladder without evidence of gallstones or cystic duct obstruction.

The average time between the onset of Covid-19 symptoms and the diagnosis of “acalculous cholecystitis” was two months, and the diagnosis was verified through ultrasound and CT scan of the abdomen.

According to Dr. Arora, all of these patients successfully had laparoscopic excision of necrotic perforated gall bladders. He went on to say that “acalculous cholecystitis” with gangrenous gallbladder is a severe disease with considerably greater morbidity (up to 30-60% ) and death than “calculous cholecystitis.”

According to doctors, all five individuals recovered from Covid-19 and lacked the typical and traditional risk factors listed above.