GALLSTONE PREVALENCE IN GERMANY - THE ULM GALLBLADDER STONE STUDY

The Ulm Gallbladder Stone Study is the first ultrasound-based epidemio logic survey of cholecystolithiasis in the former West Germany. A stud y population of 1116 blood donors (656 men, age 38.0 +/- 12.0 years: 4 60 women, age 34.1 +/- 11.2 years) at the Central Blood Bank of the Ge rman Red Cross in Ulm was examined between April 1994 and February 199 5. Based on age, subjects were assigned to one of four groups (18-30, 31-40, 41-50, and 51-65 years). Following a structured interview of ea ch study subject, an ultrasound examination was carried out and a bloo d sample obtained for laboratory study. Overall, 6.0% (95% (95% CI: 4. 8%-7.6%) of all study subjects (5.8% of the men and 6.3% of the women) exhibited evidence of current or past gallbladder disease (cholelithi asis or history of cholecystectomy). The prevalence of gallbladder dis ease correlated positively with age, reaching a maximum of 13.7% (9.5- 20.0) in the 51- to 65-year-old age group, and also correlated as with body mass index (BMI). Female subjects with previous full-term pregna ncies showed a higher prevalence of cholelithiasis, but this differenc e was not statistically significant for age-adjusted analysis. Subject s with a family history of cholelithiasis were found to suffer from ga llstones in 11.5% (8.0-16.7) of cases compared with 4.6% (3.4%-6.3%) o f subjects without such family history. Autopsy studies conducted in G ermany have shown the prevalence of gallstones to be about 13.1% in me n and 33.8% in women. Our sonographic data are relatively low in compa rison. This may be due, in part, to the specific selection characteris tics inherent in retrospective autopsy studies, such as age distributi on and the presence of other pathologic factors associated with increa sed risk for cholelithiasis. The Ulm data rank in the lower third of t he prevalence range reported for European sonographic studies to date. Age, positive family history, and increased BMI all correlated positi vely with the prevalence of gallbladder disease (P < 0.05). For the st udy population as a whole, there was no gender-specific increased risk for the development of gallstones.