[Cholecystectomy in young women from the south-oriental area of Santiago: comparison between 2 periods]. / Colecistectomía en mujeres jovenes del area suroriente de Santiago: comparación entre dos períodos.

The aim of this study was to know if cholecystectomy rates have decreased in young women, considering that these rates have decreased in the last years in the general chilean population. The frequency of previous cholecystectomy was compared in 1582 women aged 23.9 +/- 5.8 years admitted to a maternity for delivery between 1985 and 1986 and 4943 women aged 24.6 +/- 5.9 years admitted between 1989 and 1990 for the same reason. There was a reduction in cholecystectomy frequency from 4.7 to 2.5% specially among women 21 to 35 years old. Cholecystectomy was performed at a mean age of 23 years in both groups and 42.6% of the procedures were done before the first pregnancy. An unexpected finding was a lower body weight among women studied in the second period (62.5 +/- 9.1 vs 67.7 +/- 8.4 k).