What is the treatment for gallstones?

The recommended treatment would be to surgically remove the gallbladder. This is because unlike kidney stones that can be broken down by shockwave therapy (lithotripsy) - the composition of gallstones and bile duct anatomy make this modality not feasible. Furthermore symptomatic gallstones that cause recurrent right upper abdominal pain do not go away on their own and small gallstones that make their way into the common bile duct can get stuck at the ampulla and cause jaundice and sepsis. The current gold standard treatment is keyhole surgery to remove the gallbladder. This entails 4 cuts to the abdomen in total and the operation has two phases - a. careful laparoscopic dissection to identify the gallbladder duct and its blood supply to allow clips to be applied to control them before cutting. An ontable dye test (cholangiogram) is often performed prior to this to ensure no stone has gone into the common bile duct. b. The second phase is separating the gallbladder from the liver bed to allow retrieval and then closure of all abdo wounds after a washout is done