Sonographic assessment of the prevalence of gall bladder abnormalities in children with sickle cell disease in Kano, Nigeria

Comparative Sonographic Evaluation of the Gallbladder in Sickle Cell Disease Patients and Apparently Healthy Non-Sickle Cell Disease Individuals in a Nigerian Town

“…Out of these, six (6) were male subjects while four (4) were females. This is similar to a study by Saleh et al [40] in Kano where there were 19 subjects having thickened gall bladder wall, which was also more than gallstones prevalence; out of these, 11 were male subjects while 8 were female and a study by Nzeh et al [42] in Ilorin where 13 cases of thickened gallbladder wall were noted out of 161 subjects (i.e 8% prevalence) recruited for the study and that was more than those with gallstones (with 4.2% prevalence).The prevalence of cholecystitis is higher in this study compared to the studies by Ma'aji et al [43] in Sokoto where it was present in seven out of 72 patients making 9.7%, and by Bakhieta et al [41] in Sudan where only two patients out of 90(2.2%) presented with cholecystitis. This difference may be due to age range difference and smaller sample size in the latter two studies as well as differences in geographical location with regards to Sudan.…”

“…The difference in the prevalence of cholecystitis (thickened gallbladder wall) between the subjects and controls in this study was statistically significant (p = 0.001). This is similar to the findings by Saleh et al [40] in Kano who found a statistically significant difference in the prevalence of cholecystitis between the subjects and controls (p = 0.000). In this study, none of the subjects had cholecystitis.…”

“…The influence of puberty on the occurrence of the condition has also been postulated [24,28,30,[32][33][34][35] and this may be a possible explanation for the findings in the present study. The prevalence of cholelithiasis has been reported to be more in females compared to their male counterparts especially in the adult population [21,40,41] and this has also been observed in some paediatric studies [28,30]. This was also observed in this study.…”