Case Report: Cholelithiasis in Severe Mediterranean (Cooley’s) Anemia

Abstract

A case of cholelithiasis is reported in a child with the severe form of Mediterranean anemia. The patient was one of a group of children with this disease but without biliary tract symptoms on whom a roentgenographic survey was carried out. Cholecystitis subsequently occurred in this patient, and a cholecystectomy was performed. Cholelithiasis occurs as a complication of severe Mediterranean anemia, less frequently than in spherocytic or in sickle cell anemia but on a comparable etiologic basis.

Thalassaemia*

“…It may well be that 'Cholelithiasis undoubtedly occurs more frequently in Mediterranean anaemia than has been reported hitherto in the literature' (Smith and Morgenthau, 1951 ) and it is interesting that their patient 'was one of a group of nine children with severe Mediterranean anaemia who were investigated roentenologically as a part of a routine study to determine the incidence of cholelithiasis in this disease. The patient was the only one of this group showing the presence of gallstones, but clinical symptoms arising from this source did not appear until two months after this observation was made'.…”