Gallstone

In medicine, gallstones are crystalline bodies formed within the body by accretion or concretion of normal or abnormal bile components.

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Cholesterol stones are usually white or yellow in color and account for

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about 80 percent of gallstones. They are made primarily of cholesterol.

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Pigment stones are small, dark stones made of bilirubin and calcium salts that are found in bile. They account for the other 20 percent of

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gallstones. Risk factors for pigment stones include cirrhosis, biliary

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tract infections, and hereditary blood cell disorders, such as sickle

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cell anemia.

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Stones of mixed origin also occur.

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Gallstones can occur anywhere within the biliary tree, including the gallbladder and the common bile duct. Obstruction of the common bile duct is choledocholithiasis; obstruction of the biliary tree can cause jaundice; obstruction of the outlet of the pancreatic exocrine system can cause pancreatitis. Cholelithiasis is the presence of stones in the gallbladder - chole- means "gall bladder", lithia meaning "stone", and -sis means "process".

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Gallstones vary in size and may be as small as a grain of sand or as

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large as a golf ball. The gallbladder may develop a single, often large,

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stone or many smaller ones, even several thousand.

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Medicine: Medicine is a branch of health science concerned with maintaining human health and restoring it by treating disease and injury; it is both an area of knowledge, a science of body systems and diseases and their treatment, and the applied practice of that knowledge....

Bile: Bile (or gall) is a bitter, greenish-yellow alkaline fluid secreted by the liver of most vertebrates. In many species, it is stored in the gallbladder between meals and upon eating is discharged into the duodenum where it aids the process of digestion....

Bilirubin: Bilirubin is a yellow breakdown product of haem (heme in American English). Haem is a special ring shaped molecule that is found in haemoglobin and is essential to the oxygen carrying capacity of blood....