Correlation of mechanical factors and gallbladder pain

Li, W.G., Luo, X.Y., Hill, N.A., Smythe, A., Chin, S.B., Johnson, A.G. and Bird, N.C. (2008) Correlation of mechanical factors and gallbladder pain. Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine, 9(1), pp. 27-45. (doi: 10.1080/17486700701780266)

Abstract

Acalculous biliary pain occurs in patients with no gallstones, but is similar to that experienced by patients with gallstones. Surgical removal of the gallbladder (GB) in these patients is only successful in providing relief of symptoms to about half of those operated on, so a reliable pain-prediction model is needed. In this paper, a mechanical model is developed for the human biliary system during the emptying phase, based on a clinical test in which GB volume changes are measured in response to a standard stimulus and a recorded pain profile. The model can describe the bile emptying behaviour, the flow resistance in the biliary ducts, the peak total stress, including the passive and active stresses experienced by the GB during emptying. This model is used to explore the potential link between GB pain and mechanical factors. It is found that the peak total normal stress may be used as an effective pain indicator for GB pain. When this model is applied to clinical data of volume changes due to Cholecystokinin stimulation and pain from 37 patients, it shows a promising success rate of 88.2% in positive pain prediction.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: Gallbladder, total stress, gallbladder pain, gallstone, flow resistance, emptying
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Luo, Professor Xiaoyu and Hill, Professor Nicholas
• Authors: Li, W.G., Luo, X.Y., Hill, N.A., Smythe, A., Chin, S.B., Johnson, A.G., and Bird, N.C.
• Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics; R Medicine > RC Internal medicine; Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Mathematics and Statistics > Mathematics
• Journal Name: Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 1748-670X
• ISSN (Online): 1748-6718
• Published Online: 22 January 2008
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2008 Taylor and Francis
• First Published: First published in Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine 9(1):27-45
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
48910	1	Exploring the Mechanisms of Human Gallbladder Pain	Xiaoyu Luo	Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)	EP/G015651/1	M&S - MATHEMATICS