The natural history of gallstone disease in 691 patients, followed for a mean +/- SD duration of 78 +/- 61.6 months (median 62.9 months), is presented. These patients are all subscribers of a large health maintenance organization and are believed to represent a cross-section of middle income Americans. Symptoms attributed to biliary tract disease were present in 556 (80.5%), and the other 135 (19.5%) patients were asymptomatic. In the symptomatic group, the mean +/- SD duration of observation was 82.9 +/- 63.2 months (median 68.5 months); 242 (44%) eventually underwent biliary tract operations most often because of persistent symptoms. Only 10% of asymptomatic patients followed for 58 +/- 50.2 months (median 46.3 months) developed symptoms of biliary calculi, and seven per cent required operations. There were 50 deaths in this series of 691 patients, 25 in the symptomatic group, and 25 in the asymptomatic. Only two of these deaths were biliary tract related, and both were in the symptomatic group. This study suggests that patients with silent stones do not need to be operated on prior to the development of symptoms. In addition, many patients with symptoms of biliary calculi can tolerate their symptoms for long periods of time and prefer this course of action to cholecystectomy.

Diverticulitis at a young age does not have a specific aggressive nature. Although, it is associated with a high rate of emergency operations, many of these are performed for a mistaken diagnosis. The recommendation for routine elective resection following the first episode of diverticulitis should be reassessed.

During a 6-year period from 1976 to 1982, 7346 gastrointestinal endoscopy procedures were performed in the Surgical Endoscopy Unit of Beth Israel Medical Center. This report summarizes our experience with 443 gastroduodenal polyps excised in 257 patients. Of these, 123 were male and 134 female, ranging in age from 19 to 92. The vast majority were between the ages of 60 and 80. With one exception, polyps varied from 0.3 cm to 6 cm in diameter (one patient had a 12-cm hyperplastic polyp). There were 399 gastric polyps in 238 patients and 44 duodenal polyps in 19 patients. Of the polyps excised, 282 (63.1%) were sessile and 161 (36.9%) were pedunculated. The majority of the patients (185) had a single polyp and 72 patients had two or more polyps. Seven patients with multiple polyps had Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome and two patients had Gardner's Syndrome. Hyperplastic polyps constituted the majority (62%) of the polyps. These polyps have minimal, if any, tendency to degenerate into carcinoma. In contrast, adenomatous gastroduodenal polyps (21%) have a definite propensity to degenerate into carcinoma. This occurred in 9.6% of the patients in this series. There were no deaths and only two complications (bleeding) in this series.