Delhi's Sri Ganga Ram Hospital reported five patients who have contracted gallbladder gangrene after recovering from Covid-19.
A report by The Indian Express states that these patients were four men and one woman between the age of 34 and 75. Although successfully treated, doctors and medical experts believe that this was the first of such cases in the country.
The symptoms seen in the patients were fever, pain in the upper right abdomen, and vomiting. As for other diseases, two patients were diagnosed with diabetes, and one had suffered from heart disease. Of the five, three had also received steroids for their Covid treatment.
The inflammation of the gallbladder without any gallstones or cystic duct obstruction is known as "acalculous cholecystitis''. The duration between Covid-19 symptoms and diagnosis of "acalculous cholecystitis" was two months.
Dr Anil Arora, Chairman of the Institute of Liver, Gastroenterology and Pancreaticobiliary Sciences at the hospital, told the publication, “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.”
He also added that “acalculous cholecystitis” with gangrenous gallbladder had high morbidity of up to 30-60 per cent.
This disease is common in patients who suffer from diabetes, HIV, vascular disease, or those who go on prolonged fasting. But, it was observed that all five patients who had recovered from Covid did not have any of the above.
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