Spectrum of Benign Histopathological Lesions in Cholecystectomy Specimens

Background: The most commonly received specimen in any histopathology laboratory is cholecystectomy specimen. The majority of the cholecystectomies are done for Cholelithiasis. Inflammation may be acute, chronic or acute on chronic. It almost always occurs in association with gallstones, which is responsible for carcinoma and if the diagnosed early prognosis of the carcinoma gall bladder is good. Histopathological examination is therefore a must for diagnosis of early carcinomas. Subjects and Methods: 100 cholecystectomy specimens from patients       of all ages were included. All specimens were subjected to gross and microscopic assessment. Different histological findings were noted in various layers of the gall bladder. The study includes all radiologically confirmed inflammatory pathologies of including metaplastic changes of the gall bladder epithelium, irrespective of age and sex. The study excludes patients with evident gallbladder malignancy, cases with known secondaries from gall bladder, traumatic rupture of gallbladder. Results: The age of patients varied from 16 to 70 years, with a maximum number of patients (25%) belong to 31 to 40 years. Gall stones were associated with 59% cases of cholecystitis. Pigment stones were most common (74%). Histopathologically the most common diagnosis was chronic cholecystitis (69%). Conclusion: Almost all of the gallbladder lesions are inflammatory in origin, of which the most common disease being chronic cholecystitis. Chronic cholecystitis was found to be most probable diagnosis in a female of 30-40 years. Pigmented gall stones were found to be the most common etiology of chronic cholecystitis. Prompt detailed histopathological analysis will help to confirm the benign nature of the disease or to detect any precursors of malignancy.