Cirrhosis and surgery

Dear Ask The Doctor: How safe is it to have gall bladder surgery if you have cirrosis of the liver? He has saw several doctors and they tell him that there is a chance that it could kill him. I was wondering if you could tell me the chances of that.

Dear Robert: Cirrhosis is a very serious condition which affects all the organ systems in the body. Depending on severity of the cirrhosis, surgery is not usually undertaken unless deem unavoidable. The most common indication for removal of the gallbladder is gall stones. If this is the case, then non-surgical methods should be employed to resolve the problem. The specific chance of death is related to a number of factors besides cirrhosis. These include age, other conditions which the patient may have such as high blood pressure, diabetes or alcohol related diseases and indication for surgery. Assuming cirrhosis is the only issue and the indication for surgery is gall stones, he is still a very high risk candidate for surgery!