Cholelithiasis and gastrointestinal cancer: Is there a relationship that increases the risk of developing cancer?

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the co-existence of cholelithiasis in patients with gastrointestinal (GI) cancer both in preoperative and postoperative periods.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data of patients who underwent GI tract cancer surgery in the general surgery clinic of a university hospital between January 2013 and December 2019 for the presence of 'cholelithiasis' in the preoperative and postoperative periods. Age, gender, tumor type and localization and presence of the cholelithiasis in the patients were determined. In addition, the cases were divided into two as upper GI tract and lower GI tract according to tumor location and the relationship with cholelithiasis was evaluated.

Results: A total of 680 GI cancer patients were included in the study. Localization of GI cancers were; colon in 211 cases (31%), rectum in 195 cases (28.7%), gastric in 187 cases (27.5%), periampullary region in 55 cases (8.1%), and small intestine in 32 cases (4.7%). In the preoperative period, 69 (10.1%) patients were associated with cholelithiasis. Thirty-one (5.1%) patients had accompanying cholelithiasis in the postoperative period. Coexistence of cholelithiasis according to cancer location was not statistically significant in the preoperative and postoperative periods.

Conclusions: Our available data make it difficult to distinguish the roles of cholelithiasis on gastrointestinal cancers, because no statistically causal relationship was found between cholelithiasis and gastrointestinal cancers. However, the role of asymptomatic and symptomatic stones, which may or may not require cholecystectomy, in the development of GI tract cancers should not be ignored.