**2. Methods**

We conducted a 12 year retrospective study between 2009 and 2020, which included patients who had preoperative transabdominal ultrasonography showing gallbladder polyps and had undergone cholecystectomy, and for whom postoperative pathology results were available, as well as patients who had at least one polyp discovered on the histopathological exam and who were not determined preoperatively.

Epidemiological, clinical, morphological, and ultrasound data were then collected, as well as data from anatomy pathology interventions and reports.

### **3. Results**

A total of 70 patients were identified. The sex ratio (male:female) was 0.34. The average age was 53.4 years with extremes ranging from 28 to 78 years. A total of 35 patients had a medical history, such as high blood pressure (25.7%), dyslipidemia (11.4%), and diabetes (8.6%). A total of 45 patients had a surgical history. The ASA score was 1 in 62.9%, 2 in 34.3%, and 3 in 2.9%.

Abdominal ultrasound was performed in all patients.

Preoperative diagnosis of vesicular polyp by ultrasound was carried in 82.9% of patients. Either due to symptoms in 68.6% of cases—right hypochondrium pain (48.4%), liver colic (35.5%), vomiting (9.7%) or fortuitous discovery in 8.6% of cases during an abdominal ultrasound for other pathology, or systematically in 5.7% of cases (four cases) as part of the preoperative assessment of an umbilical hernia.

In 17.1% of cases, the polyp was discovered perioperatively.

The number of ultrasounds performed per person was 1.2 ± 0.47.


**Table 1.**

*Demographic and clinical characteristics of the study population.*

*Ultrasound Modality in the Evaluation and Management of Gallbladder Polyps DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101337*

The number of gallbladder polyps per patient was 1.59 ± 0.79.

The polyps' size in mm was on average 6.14 ± 2.6 with extremes between 3 and 13 mm. Gallbladder polyp and gallbladder stones were found in four patients (**Table 1**).

Other additional tests were performed: abdominal CT scan in 17.1% of cases, MRI in 5.7% of cases, upper endoscopy in 14.3% of cases, especially before gastric pain.

The surgical indication was retained especially when there were symptomatic polyps whatever the size, which was in 67.6% of cases.

### **Figure 1.**

*Correlation between the size of the polyp on the abdominal ultrasound and the presence of polyp on the piece of cholecystectomy.*


**Table 2.**

*Sensibility and specificity of the abdominal ultrasound in function of the size of the polyp.*

Cholecystectomy was performed by laparoscopy in 82.9% of cases.

On anatomopathological examination, a polyp was objectified in 33.3% of cases.

The average size was 8.83 ± 10.8 mm. Dysplasia was found in 72.7% of all polyps. In 22.7% of cases, cholesterolosis was noted.

In our series, abdominal ultrasound had a low sensitivity at 36.4%.

Using the ROC curve (**Figure 1**) to study the correlation between the size of the polyp on the abdominal ultrasound and the presence of polyp on the piece of cholecystectomy, we found that the area under the curve was 0.315, which corresponds to a low discriminating power.

The study of the coordinates of the curve showed that a size of 7 mm would have the best specificity and sensitivity (**Table 2**).
