Cholecystectomy: clinical experience with a large series.

This large series of 1,035 consecutive operations with a primary diagnosis of inflammatory or calculus disease of the gallbladder included a large number of elderly patients with the greatest incidence in the seventh and eighth decades of life. Operation was performed after initial stabilization when acute illness presented and without prolonged delay of medical treatment. Cholecystectomy was almost always able to be performed successfully at the initial operation.