A Case Report of Dubin-Johnson Syndrome with Gallstones

Haruki Ishimura, Kunihiko Manabe, Kazunori Taguchi, Motoshi Tamura, Takashi Ohmura, Jun-ichi Uchino

First Department of Surgery, Hokkaido University School of Medicine

We had one cholecystectomied case of Dubin-Johnson syndrome (D-J syndrome) complicated with gallstones, a 35 year old man with jaundice and right hypochondralgia. His common bile duct and gallbladder were visualized by Drip Infusion Cholecystocholangiography (DIC), but no gallstones appeared. Ultrasonography showed a strong echo with acoustic shadow in the gallbladder, which on cholecystectomy contained 327 cholesterol gallstones. They consisted of more than 98% cholesterol. His postoperative liver function was almost the same as the preoperative one. On the 3rd postoperative day his maximum level of serum total bilirubin and direct bilirubin were 5.6 mg/dl, 4.0 mg/dl respectively. His postoperative course was uneventful. A total of 24 such cases are reported in Japan to 1988, including our case. In these cases, younger generation from 10 to 29 years old is more frequently complicated with gallstones, compared with the same generation of operated gallstone cases without D-J syndrome. When patients with D-J syndrome complain of abdominal pain, it is important to check for gallstones by ultrasonography at first too.

Key words
D-J syndrome with gallstone

Reprint requests
Haruki Ishimura First Department of Surgery, Hokkaido University School of Medicine
W-7, N-15, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060 JAPAN

Accepted
April 11, 1990

To read the PDF file you will need Abobe Reader installed on your computer.