Functional Gallbladder Disorder

Abstract

Functional gallbladder disorder refers to biliary-like pain in the absence of structural disease. It is a controversial condition and has many aliases including acalculous biliary disease, acalculous gallbladder dysfunction, biliary dyskinesia, chronic acalculous gallbladder dysfunction, and gallbladder dyskinesia. The multitude of names is likely a direct reflection of the difficulty defining this disorder and understanding its pathogenesis. In fact, there is not a specific ICD-9 code for functional gallbladder disorder. Despite these difficulties, this constellation of symptoms is very relevant as it is frequently encountered in medical and surgical practices. The Rome committee has attempted to standardize the definition of biliary pain and criteria for the diagnosis of functional gallbladder disorder; however, due to significant overlap with other functional gastrointestinal disorders, continued confusion persists.