Doctors at Rhode Island Hospital recently began performing a new procedure that eliminates gallstones without surgery.
Two women at the hospital on August 3 were the first patients in Rhode Island to receive the lithotripsy treatment, which transmits tiny shockwaves to break apart gallstones. The remaining fragments then are dissolved with the help of drugs and expelled from the body.
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Although the method has been used for years to treat kidney stones, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the treatment for gallstones last September.
“The procedure doesn’t require any incision,” said Dr. August Zabbo, director of lithotripsy services at Rhode Island Hospital. “Normally someone with gallstone disease must have their gall bladder taken out either through open surgery or laparoscopy.”
Zabbo said both treatments performed last week were successful. Dr. Atilla Ertan, president of the American College of Gastroenterologists, trained five Rhode Island Hospital surgeons and physicians to perform the lithotripsy procedure.
Gallstones are formed when cholesterol causes bile in the gall bladder to crystallize. The stones can cause sharp pain when they pass from ducts in the gall bladder to other parts of the digestive system.
An estimated 25 million Americans suffer from gallstones, according to Medstone International Inc., the California-based maker of the lithotripsy device used in the new procedure. About 500,000 people a year have their gall bladders removed because of the disease, the company estimates.
Most gallstone disease patients are not candidates for the new shockwave treatment: It is aimed at patients in the early stages of the disease, when gallstones are smaller and the gall bladder still is functioning well.
The procedure might also be an option for patients who either don’t want their gall bladders removed or are unable to have surgery. The cost of the treatment reportedly is half the cost of gall bladder-removal surgery.
Although Medstone claims the procedure might be an option for as many as 30 percent of gallstone-disease patients, Zabbo estimates just 5 to 10 percent of people with gallstone symptoms are candidates for the treatment.
