CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Hepatobiliary Diseases
This article is part of the Research Topic25 Years of 21st Century MedicineView all 24 articles
Gallbladder agenesis leading to an unnecessary surgery: a case report
Provisionally accepted
Yu Liu1
zhen zi Yin1,2*- 1Heze Medical College, Heze, China
- 2Heze University, Heze, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Gallbladder agenesis is a rare congenital anomaly of the biliary system. Preoperative diagnosis of gallbladder agenesis is challenging and such conditions are often identified intraoperatively. In this report, we present a case of cgallbladder agenesis encountered during laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Case presentation: A 47-year-old female patient attended our hospital in August 2023 due to distension and discomfort in the right upper quadrant. Ultrasound images revealed that the patient's gallbladder was filled with gallstones. The patient was admitted to our hospital for laparoscopic cholecystectomy; however, no gallbladder was visualized during the laparoscopy, and the final diagnosis was congenital absence of the gallbladder. Conclusion: The diagnosis of Gallbladder agenesis remains a challenge, It may lead to an unnecessary surgery if physicians do not pay attention to careful differential diagnosis.
Keywords: Gallbladder agenesis, Cholecystectomy, Laparoscopy, Abdominal Pain, Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP)
Received: 28 Sep 2025; Accepted: 01 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu and Yin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: zhen zi Yin
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.