ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Preeclampsia-eclampsia is a hypertensive disease of pregnancy with systemic complications. Studies regarding ultrasonographic characteristics of biliary gallbladder are limited. We undertook this study to determine the ultrasonographic biliary gallbladder characteristics in patients with preeclampsia-eclampsia. METHODS: This was a case series comprised of 115 women studied who were diagnosed with preeclampsia-eclampsia during pregnancy or the postpartum period. In all patients an ultrasonographic biliary gallbladder exam was carried out. Statistical analysis was performed with ANOVA test using SPSS software. RESULTS: We included 93 pregnant (80.87%) and 22 women in the immediate postpartum period (19.13%). Maternal age was 27.18 +/- 5.71 years, parity was 1.86 +/- 1.16, pregnancy age was 32.57 +/- 4.15 weeks, epigastric pain was present in 23 patients (20%), and two patients (1.72%) had history of inflammatory gallbladder disease. The main diagnosis was uncomplicated severe preeclampsia (73.06%), complicated severe preeclampsia was found in 19.99%, eclampsia in 5.21% and recurrent severe preeclampsia was present in 1.74%. According to the ultrasonographic findings we established five groups as follows: (A) wall edema (62 cases), (B) normal appearance (45 cases), (C) lithiasis (5 cases), (D) undetermined (2 cases) and (E) gallbladder polyp (1 case). The gallbladder size was similar in all cases (length 71.97 +/- 9.76 mm, transverse 27.31 +/- 6.6 mm). Regarding gallbladder wall thickness, we found a mean 6.21 +/- 2.96 mm in the edema group, 2.06 +/- 0.25 mm in the normal appearance group, 3.0 +/- 1.0 mm in the lithiasis group and 2 mm in the gallbladder polyp group. The gallbladder content was anechoic in 102 patients (88.69%), with biliary sludge in 11 women (9.57%) and undetermined in 2 cases (1.74%). CONCLUSIONS: The most frequent ultrasonographic biliary gallbladder characteristics in patients with preeclampsia-eclampsia were reduced biliary gallbladder, thick walls secondary to edema, double border appearance and anechoic content.