LAUSR

Prevalence of cholelithiasis has been increasing among paediatric groups in recent years. While cholecystectomy is the standard treatment for symptomatic cholelithiasis, non-surgical management with ursodeoxycholic acid has also been explored as an alternative. Several studies have investigated the efficacy of ursodeoxycholic acid in adults with cholelithiasis, but its effectiveness in children is still unclear. The proposed thesis aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of ursodeoxycholic acid in non-surgical management of cholelithiasis in children. This prospective observational study was conducted over a period from April’ 2023 to October’ 2024, in outpatient department of Paediatric Surgery at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University. A total of 24 patients diagnosed with cholelithiasis were included in this research. All participants received ursodeoxycholic acid and were followed up at the 3, 6, and 12-month marks. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors associated with gallstone dissolution. Among the 24 subjects, the majority of participants were under 10 years with an average age of 9.35±2.92 years and about 62.5% were female. Most of the stones were small, measuring <5 mm (62.5%), and 18 patients (75.0%) had single stone. In the first follow-up, post-treatment, only 2 patients showed reduced stone size while at second follow-up, 4 patients (16.67%) showed sonographic evidence of complete stone dissolution, and 5 patients (20.83%) exhibited reduced stone size. During the final follow-up,10 patients (41.16%) achieved complete dissolution, and 9 patients (37.5%) showed a reduction in stone size. This study found that ursodeoxycholic acid achieved success in dissolving gallstones in children.